


Nota Bene (Listen Well)

by The_Blue_Fenix



Category: The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne
Genre: F/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-16 19:26:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/865707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Blue_Fenix/pseuds/The_Blue_Fenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The return of the "Phoenix" time machine leaves Phileas Fogg beside himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nota Bene (Listen Well)

It was nearly midnight, and a heavy early winter mist curled around the outside of the London townhouse. Phileas Fogg was spending a rare few days in his nominal home. The house made a convenient base for the occasional necessity of meeting with lawyers to sign papers he'd long since stopped reading. A dishonest financial manager could bleed him dry at will, he supposed. But he'd inherited his father's man of business along with everything else; the family fortune, and the associated paperwork, showed no signs of disappearing.

Rebecca Fogg, who knew how dreary her cousin found the process, was staying at the house too for moral support. She'd gone upstairs for the night an hour or two ago. Fogg was sober by his own elastic standards, and nearly so by normal ones. He'd been nursing a single snifter of brandy for over an hour as he browsed idly through the books in the library. A stack of deeds and documents he'd promised to read by tomorrow waited on his father's desk. Neglecting them in favor of Sir Walter Scott gave Fogg a mildly pleasant feeling of getting away with something. He put one leather-bound volume back in its place on the shelf and reached for another.

Something struck him. It bypassed all the usual senses of sight, hearing, or touch. It wasn't pain, by any normal definition. But it was real all the same, a surge in his head and chest as if gravity had momentarily rebelled. The book fell from his hand. Fogg swayed, and caught his balance against the edge of the desk. What on earth? An apoplectic stroke seemed the most likely possibility. Of all the deaths he'd ever considered, natural causes while relaxing at home was at the very bottom of the list. He wondered vaguely when it was going to start to hurt. Phileas Fogg started toward the bell-pull more from a sense of fitting behavior than out of any fully realized fear.

The library door was flung open without warning. Passepartout burst into the room, his eyes wide and white-rimmed like those of a panicked horse. "Master! The strangest thing I never see ..."

Fogg's head was clearing. "I believe I'm fine now, Passepartout," he said reassuringly. "How did you know? I didn't ring."

"Master?" Passepartout stared at him, uncomprehending. "Coming to tell you, the door ..." The valet's polyglot vocabulary dried up on him completely. He waved frantically toward the hallway. Someone was behind him, moving smoothly around the stunned servant. Fogg caught a momentary impression of silver hair, and a lean predatory silhouette, before the visitor stepped into the better light of the library.

 _Richlieu,_ was Fogg's first instinctive impression, flashing back to memories of their brief excursion through parallel time. But this was an older man than the infamous Cardinal. His thick hair was silver-gray and his clean-shaven face showed deep lines at the mouth and eyes. His bearing too was completely wrong, relaxed and almost cheerful. "If I mention that the _Phoenix_ is parked in the back garden," the stranger said in a wholly English voice, "does that get you any further toward the right answer?"

It was the cadence of the voice that did it, a rhythm that was completely familiar to Phileas Fogg even though the tone sounded subtly wrong. _Outsider's viewpoint,_ he thought, a little wildly. "You."

His visitor beamed at him and bowed slightly from the waist. "As you say, you. Or me. It's good to see me again -- seems like it's been ages."

Passepartout looked wildly from one man to the other. "You are being same person? But ... he is older as your father."

"Possibly not _quite_ the most tactful way of putting it," said the elder Phileas Fogg. "But correct in essence ... time travel will do that. If you'd summon Rebecca then, Passepartout? I'm afraid this isn't a social visit, and my time here is strictly limited."

Passepartout looked desperately at his own Fogg for guidance. Phileas nodded; the valet disappeared toward the main staircase. "I felt something very strange a few minutes ago," Phileas directed at his double. "Was that you?"

The older man nodded. "I felt it too. Some sort of Heisenberg effect -- I'm almost certain." From his tone of voice, the remark was a joke. Phileas waited patiently to be told what was funny about it. The older man sighed. "A bit beside ourselves, let's say. Even if we hadn't an operational deadline -- and we do -- there are sound existential reasons why you can't be told anything more about time travel than strictly necessary until you learn it for yourself. My visit here is incredibly dangerous to the stream of time, and it would not have been allowed without a good reason. _Nota bene._ "

 _Listen well._ The Latin phrase had been an integral part of Phileas' childhood with Rebecca and his brother. First under the guise of a game, later as overt intelligence training, Boniface Fogg had drilled his sons and his ward daily until any of them could retain more than an hour of complex conversation word-for-word. Phileas felt the engrained mental disciplines coming to life. He gave his elder self a foul look. He never enjoyed _nota bene_ ; it made him feel like a recording machine in one of Verne's literary fantasies. The other Fogg shrugged, unrepentant.

Phileas studied the older man as attentively as an enemy. _At least I don't lose my hair._ He had shed the close-trimmed, pointed side whiskers that were the younger Fogg's personal affectation. The elder Fogg noted _probably remembered_ hisyounger self's focus of attention, and turned his head. A faint but extensive band of scarring stretched just in front of the left ear, an inch wide by two or three high. The man probably couldn't grow a beard there if he'd wanted to. "What happened?" Phileas asked.

"A burn. A petroleum-based chemical, used here and there in the future as a military weapon. It flows like burning water and clings to flesh. The medical care available where and when it happened was considerably better than the present day -- but it did hurt like hell." The elder Fogg's eyes glittered. "That should please you, anyway."

"I don't go out of my way to acquire injuries," Phileas snapped.

"Not non-fatal ones, certainly."

Phileas gritted his teeth. _My future self is a sarcastic bastard._ He tried again to estimate the man's age from his appearance -- the gap was nearer twenty years than ten, he thought. Possibly more. "How old are you?"

"It's 1861, born 1822 ... exactly as old as you are."

"You know damned well what I mean."

"I do. Which is why I won't answer any variation of that question." The elder Fogg pointed at him with an index finger. "If I told you that you had thirty years to live -- or ten, or five -- you'd probably shoot yourself in the head tomorrow to spite me. Don't bother. You have as much free will as anyone; my existence doesn't prove you won't be hit by a wagon in the street. In this part of the time stream, I'm a contingency. A possible Phileas Fogg, if you like."

On the whole, he didn't. "I don't see how you can be here in any case. We sent the _Phoenix_ away through time."

"Yes, we did. Like a loose cannon -- not one of our brightest ideas ever. Or perhaps like a stray cat, since it turned up again. The outcome was the most extraordinarily complex ... ah. Rebecca." His voice warmed.

She was fully dressed, a feat even Rebecca couldn't accomplish in five minutes. She must have never gone to bed at all. She looked from her own Phileas to the older man, and back. "So it's true. I didn't think I could be understanding Passepartout properly." The valet stood a little behind her as if using her for shelter. He kept twisting his hands together nervously.

"Time travel," Phileas said laconically. "Some tremendous mission that only we can undertake. _Nota bene_."

Rebecca winced as her own trained reflexes took charge. "You know that gives me a headache."

"He started it." Phileas wanted a way to cross-check the accuracy of his own recollections afterward. He was also annoyed enough that he felt like sharing his own discomfiture.

The elder Fogg was still staring at Rebecca. "You are a vision," he said softly. "I'd almost ..." _forgotten_ , the younger Phileas finished in his head. As if the man hadn't seen her in years. Phileas felt a sick emptiness in the pit of his stomach. _And I've been grilling him for my own life expectancy, as if that mattered._

Rebecca hadn't made the same deductions her cousin had. She caught the older Fogg by both hands and looked him over with avid interest. "You don't look too bad yourself." She caught sight of the scar, and the color drained from her face. "God, Phileas ..." Her fingers flew up to it.

He caught her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "It healed. It's over. Compared to the other options that were available at the time, I wouldn't wish it undone. You worry too much."

"Someone has to," Rebecca retorted. And stopped in her tracks, because the older man had said it with her in perfect unison. He grinned wickedly at her. Phileas, an unregarded onlooker, seethed quietly. _I don't care who he is, he should mind his manners._

The older Fogg let go of Rebecca's hands. He raised his own left hand, palm away from him, into his line of sight. The gesture made no sense until the younger Fogg spotted a gold watch, no larger than a coin, strapped to the back of the man's wrist. "I wasn't joking about our time being limited," he said. "As we're all here now, let's repair to the _Phoenix_. There are several things I need to show you if you're going to operate it without me."

The older Fogg headed out into the hallway as if he owned the place. Rebecca fell into step beside him. Passepartout looked ready to quietly disappear; Phileas caught his sleeve. "Wouldn't dream of doing this without you. Keep an eye on him, Passepartout. I don't trust him."

The valet stared. "But is _you_ , master."

"Nevertheless." Rebecca and the older man were whispering to each other as they walked, fragmentary sentences. Try as he might, Phileas couldn't make out any words. He stared vindictively at the backs of their heads.

The townhouse had a walled back garden of something like thirty by fifty feet, which was luxurious excess for London. The _Phoenix_ was nestled close to one wall, taking up just under half the available space. And squashing the housekeeper's prized vegetable beds, Phileas noted; there'd be hell to pay for that. The older man swung nimbly under the railing to the time ship's deck and offered Rebecca a hand up. Phileas interposed himself and assisted his cousin instead. Passepartout, who looked like he'd be happier anywhere rather than in the middle of the family conflict, trailed along behind as far back as he could get away with.

The inside of the _Phoenix_ had changed considerably. The brass levers at the pilot's station were still there, but the console directly below the front windows had been completely rebuilt. The changes had been done in several stages over a lengthy period, Phileas judged, with radically different materials available to each refurbisher. Some sections were riveted and bolted brass; others were welded steel; still others were a dull gray substance. The most intriguing change was several strips of what looked like black glass fitted into the dull gray material. Angular red numbers, self-illuminated like glowing coals, shone through the black glass. The substance was cool and unbroken when Phileas touched it with one fingertip. There was also, fitted into the center of the console, a large round bright-red button rimmed in steel.

The older Fogg pointed at the first strip of glowing numbers. "Current location, latitude and longitude, down to a quarter second of arc," he said. The next strip. "Current time." The last number in the row was changing by itself at a steady pace; with that clue, Phileas was able to break that strip of numbers into days, hours, minutes, and seconds. "The other readouts are the same, exact time and place of the ship's next destination. The micro ... the controls to reset them have are unshipped at the moment. We didn't want to tempt you. So you get one time trip with the current configuration, to a preset time and place. When you're ready to start -- which will be quite clear from the circumstances, I promise -- get everyone aboard and press the big red button."

Rebecca nodded as if it were a normal mission briefing. "How do we get back to our own time?"

"By living through it in the ordinary way, I'm afraid -- but the difference is under a week. Don't worry about the ship. She knows how to get home on her own."

Phileas was looking at the destination longitude and latitude numbers on the console. Central France, certainly. Probably Paris, but he couldn't be certain without a map. "Why don't you just tell us where we're going and why?"

The other Fogg was beginning to look annoyed in turn. "Because our time is limited, and it's completely unnecessary. Jules is probably no more than ten minutes away right now."

"So this is about Verne? He's not in London, he's in Calais. We won't see him again until the end of the month."

The other Fogg said nothing. Phileas leaned a little closer. "You keep talking about us operating the time ship without you. Where will you be while we're on this little jaunt, enjoying a London vacation?"

"Not at all. My ride arrives in," the elder Fogg looked at his wrist again, "four minutes and thirty-seven seconds. After you send the _Phoenix_ back, my associates will bring it here a second time and pick me up. Absurdly simple once you've grasped the principle."

The offhand, patronizing drawl wrecked the last of Phileas' self-control. He was annoyed past tolerance with this arrogant, enigmatic, _cheerful_ bastard. His vision was red-tinged as he grabbed the man's lapels with both hands. The other Fogg's attempted block was too little too late. Passepartout almost squeaked in surprise, backing himself into a corner of the cabin; Rebecca swore out loud. Phileas ignored both of them, and got a solid arm bar around the other man's neck. "That will do." Even to himself his chill, even tone sounded like it was walking a tightrope over madness. Time he got some advantage from that. "I don't give a good goddamn about who wins the next ten Gold Cups or whatever else you're preening yourself on knowing ahead of time. But there are one or two questions you will answer. About Rebecca."

She moved cautiously closer. "He's on our side, Phileas. Whatever reasons he has for discretion, I'm sure they're good ones. He's you. You've never acted against me in our entire lives."

"Then let him answer..." Phileas' voice wavered dangerously; he tightened his control and began again. "Let him answer why he behaved just now as if he hadn't seen you in years." He shook his prisoner by the neck. Death, desertion, marriage to some stranger; there were no good answers to hope for. _Anything but death. Let her hate me in the future -- let her hate me from this moment on,_ because _of this -- so long as she's alive._

"She is quite alive," the older Fogg said hoarsely. "And the proof is that I am too. How long has it been since you made that dramatic resolution not to outlive her?"

Phileas was struck, nearly simultaneously, with three insights. The first was that his older self had answered his thought, not his spoken words. The second, as Rebecca's expression melted in shock, was that he'd been right to never tell her of that particular plan. The third was that his older self had deliberately allowed his supposed surprise attack to succeed. The last revelation was delivered, as Phileas was still distracted by points one and two, by a sudden explosion of motion. An elbow in the solar plexus knocked the breath from his body, a heel to the shin took one leg out from under him, a titanic heave tipped him into a heap on the floor. The other Fogg backed away, giving him room to decide whether the fight would continue.

On the whole, Phileas thought not. This didn't seem to be his day. He got back upright. " _Nota bene,_ " he remarked, to at least recover part of his dignity. "You knew -- I should say, you remembered -- everything I would do and think before it happened. I call that an unfair advantage."

"True enough." The other Fogg straightened up a little stiffly; his counterattack had perhaps not been as effortless as it appeared. "I'll still answer the question. In the sense you mean it, nothing happened to Rebecca. I'm in no way separate from her. It's been many years since I've seen her this young, that's all. The worst explanation isn't always the true one, you know."

"It is where Phileas is concerned." Rebecca's voice was shaky as he had rarely heard it. Sadness, but even stronger anger; her eyes were flashing and hard. The first moment she could arrange to speak to her cousin alone wouldn't be pretty, he judged. _I didn't mean you to know, ever. It was my own choice, affecting no one else. It was the only way I could tolerate watching you take risk after risk._ "Otherwise he'd run out of things to drink about."

She'd never struck so hard, certainly not in front of others. Passepartout, out of harm's way in the corner, flinched and made as if to speak. A sharp head shake from Phileas cut the remark off before it began.

The older Fogg, too, looked surprised by the venom of the argument he'd provoked. He reached out vaguely toward Rebecca; as he did, a musical tone came from the device on his wrist. He turned sharply toward his younger self. "One minute warning, and then it _is_ time. Verne is the key. It's essential that all three of you watch over him. He'll be one of the great literary figures of this century, but that barely begins to describe his importance. If he's free to move safely in the world, he can be a catalyst for tremendous good. If the League succeeds in enslaving his talents to their own cause ... the effect on the future scarcely bears description."

As if Phileas needed specific instructions to stop him throwing the young writer to the wolves. The insult was appalling. "That's not an explanation," he said coldly.

The older man grinned at him. "I know it's maddening. Temporal paradox, can't be helped. And Phileas?"

"What."

"Catch Rebecca. Now would be a good time."

Phileas looked wildly back toward his cousin. A half-second later she went limp. She began to fall, open-eyed, folding at the hips and knees. Phileas had to move quickly to stop her hitting her head on the wall. He turned blazing eyes on his older self.

"Heisenberg effect," the other Fogg said. "She'll be good as new in a minute. Excuse me, but my ride's here." He flung open the door of the _Phoenix_.

The courtyard outside was alive with flickering light, and filled to capacity with a second _Phoenix_ beside the first. Living blue-white tongues of electricity danced over the edges of the craft, arcing from point to point of the superstructure. The door of the second time ship stood open too, with a brighter light pouring out of it. The older Fogg waved casually back at them, and leaped from one doorway to the other. A hand on his arm steadied him as he landed; the door closed the instant he was inside the other ship. The second _Phoenix_ seemed to shrink and rush away from them at the same time, like a mass of water flowing down a narrow drain. The ghastly light winked out, and darkness returned.

Rebecca stirred in Phileas' arms, recovering her balance. He wanted to keep holding on, but it would be supremely bad timing at the moment. He released his grasp before she had to push against him. Rebecca put a hand to her head. "What the devil happened to me?"

"On available evidence, I'd say that you -- an older version of you -- were aboard the other time ship. The same thing happened to me earlier." Phileas Fogg would have cheerfully taken a severe beating in exchange for that particular glimpse of the future. _She lives. A long time, at least twenty years. I'm not going to lose her._ He remembered his older self's denials of being the only possible future, and felt a little chilled. It was a chance, not a guarantee. But a good chance, a likely chance. _Some version of me did a good enough job protecting her._ More remarkably, some future Rebecca had been -- would be -- willing to tolerate enough protection to ensure her survival. He felt hope insinuating itself into his soul, driving him to take an interest in the future again in spite of his weariness. It was amazing how much that could hurt. Having something to hope for carried the inevitable counterpart of having something to lose.

The Rebecca of the present day, far from resting comfortably on her pedestal, was glaring at Phileas as she recovered her faculties. "We will talk about this."

Fogg nodded acknowledgement of his doom. "But not right now, I suggest. If your friend knew what he was talking about, then Verne will be on our doorstep in five or ten minutes with some urgent need for help." His eyes flickered momentarily to Passepartout, who still looked dazed by the whole chain of events. Rebecca caught the secondary meaning. While the two cousins had argued in front of their friends before, manners and the urge for privacy alike made them both prefer to avoid vulgar public scenes. Rebecca nodded curtly, her lips set in a tight pale line, and headed off toward the house.

Passepartout came up timidly to Fogg's side. "We already sending away the time ship and it comes back, two of them," he said. "Two of you, maybe two of Miss Rebecca ... I think I am not making any sense of this."

"I'd say that proves you're paying attention," Phileas said, and followed his cousin inside.


	2. Nil Desperandum (Do Not Despair)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The return of the Phoenix time machine draws Fogg and company through time to save the life of an old friend.

Rebecca had settled herself in an armchair in the front hallway to wait on events. Fogg thought there might be time to pinpoint their destination by its longitude and latitude. He was back in the library, just in the act of reaching down a full-folio atlas from a top shelf, when he heard the doorbell. He went to the hallway. Rebecca was answering the door herself. "Come in, Jules."

The young Frenchman shambled into the house. He didn't show any surprise at finding both Foggs and Passepartout waiting for him. His hair and clothes glittered with water from the misty evening outside; only the leather fisherman's coat he always wore showed any signs of keeping him dry. "Sorry," he mumbled. "I should have sent a wire I was coming. I really should have gone to Paris, but I couldn't do anything ... not even the funeral ... there wasn't any point. And you're the only other people in the world who knew ... I'm sorry. I'm bothering you." His eyes were overflowing with tears.

"Passepartout," Fogg said quietly, "Hot tea and blankets in the library. We'll build up the fire ourselves." The valet nodded fervently -- no less than his employers, he regarded Jules Verne as a personal friend -- and disappeared.

Rebecca took hold of the young man's hands. "You're ice cold. Come in here and get warm. It's no use your making yourself ill. Tell us what happened and we'll help you."

Jules shook his head in violent denial, but he let himself be led into the warmer room and the armchair nearest the fire. Fogg took over the task of easing him out of his leather coat. When it was removed, Jules began to shiver violently. "It's a survival reflex," Fogg reassured him. "Now that there's warmth around you, your body's trying to get some inside." He must have walked a long distance through the chill December evening to put himself in this state. Little by little, the uncontrollable shivers began to ease. "That's better." Phileas glanced at Rebecca, who met his eyes with her earlier anger set aside. Questioning the boy in this condition would be useless cruelty.

Passepartout appeared in the doorway with a full tea set on a tray and a blanket folded over one arm. "First thing is learned serving in an English house; the tea shall answer for any problem," he remarked. "The arm is falling off; put the kettle on." He poured a steaming cup while Rebecca tucked the blanket around their friend's legs.

Jules took the cup in both hands and gulped it gratefully. "Sorry," he said in a stronger voice. "I guess I didn't eat anything on the channel boat. I saw the newspaper, and I already knew there was a ship for London ... coming here was the only thing I could think of to do. I doubt if there's anything in the English papers. There barely was in the French ones. I just happened to see a Paris paper, four days old, while I was in Calais visiting friends." He reached into the pocket of his shirt and brought out a damp, much-folded scrap of newsprint. "It's Alexandre. He's dead, dead and buried."

The blunt words, even from himself, wrecked Jules' composure. He threw his head back against the chair, the muscles in his jaw clenching to hold back outright sobs. Rebecca slid one arm around the young man's shoulders to comfort him, and threw a meaningful look at Fogg. He retrieved the piece of newspaper. Alexandre Dumas, noted author of _Les Trois Mousquetaires,_ dead in a tavern brawl and in debt on the last day of November 1861. Fogg suspected the reporter, from his tone, of being a failed and bitter novelist. A little too much smugness in the description of Dumas' poverty and debauchery twenty years after the creation of his masterwork, and a distinct implication that his fate was deserved. The offhand description of the pauper's funeral the next day was particularly heartless.

Phileas himself wouldn't have trusted the magnificent old scoundrel with a five-pound loan or a bottle of brandy. But he'd been a friend to Jules Verne when the young man badly needed one, backing his first play and guiding his early ventures into writing. He'd helped Fogg and Rebecca as well, joining them with the courage of a lion in a scuffle against Prussian agents that was no duty of his. And one of the things that had drained his fortune, along with the debts and carousing he was justly famous for, was the near-obsessive construction of the _Phoenix_ time ship based on an ancient set of plans that Dumas had discovered by chance in a seventeenth-century document.

Fogg's chin came up. "The _Phoenix_."

Rebecca took his meaning instantly. "Of course. You all but spelled it out for us. But why poor Dumas in particular? People, even famous people, die every day."

Jules, confused, looked from one face to the other. "What are you talking about?"

"Damned if I know." Fogg retrieved the atlas, and flipped through it to the largest scale map of France. "Yes. The coordinates set on the _Phoenix_ are in Paris -- Montmartre, if I'm not mistaken."

"We haven't got the _Phoenix_ any more," Jules said with a dogged determination to keep the facts straight. "It's gone. Passepartout and I fixed the controls so it would go away."

"It's come back. It was delivered to the back garden about thirty minutes ago." Phileas passed the French newspaper clipping to Rebecca. "See if you can glean any additional facts from that, will you? Passepartout, I'll want you to get all the London and Paris papers you can, from the date of Dumas' death to the present, in case there are any other stories. The more we know about what we're up against, the better our chances. What else?" He stared into space for a moment, completely focused on tactics. "Money. We may have to wait for tomorrow morning when the banks open -- there's no telling what we'll need cash for, especially with the _Aurora_ out of reach. The cabin alone's three times the size of the _Phoenix_ ; we could never take it with us."

Rebecca reached across to the desk and upset what looked like a crystal inkwell on the edge of the blotter. No ink spilled out; instead a tiny brass lever set into the surface of the desk shifted into a new position. On the other side of the room, a painting of a Fogg great-uncle hinged out from the wall. "Thank you," said Phileas, and opened the wall safe behind it. The stacks of bank notes were thicker than he remembered. "Actually, I suspect this will be adequate. Likely all we have to do is keep Dumas out of harm's way on that day to put things right."

Jules sat up. "You don't understand. He's dead."

Rebecca gently smoothed the younger man's hair. "Five days ago he wasn't. You're forgetting the _Phoenix_."

"We can make it never have happened?" Jules paused, opened his mouth to start over, then gave up the effort. "You know what I mean. Is something like that even possible?"

"We've had intimations that it is." Fogg closed safe and portrait alike. "We should wait for morning in any case, I think. You'd be much the better for a night's sleep."

He meant it kindly, but the muscles in Verne's jaw tensed again. "I'm fine. Do you think I'd mess up something this important?" Between grief and exhaustion, the young Frenchman was temporarily as combative as Fogg himself.

_I'm a bad influence._ Fogg held up a placating hand. "You'll unquestionably be vital in this. You know him better than any of us. All the more reason you should be at your best. It's time travel; it makes no difference if we leave this instant or in ten hours."

Jules nodded slowly, trying to take it in. But his hands clenched the arms of the chair with undirected energy. Another moment, and he was on his feet pacing in front of the fire. "That's why I came here, so it would be safe to let go. I wanted to mourn with people who would understand." He hadn't quite used the word home, but he didn't need to. Fogg felt warmed to the heart by his friend's trust; he saw by Rebecca's softened expression that she was moved too.

Jules was still pacing. "That was when the worst had already happened. There was nothing anybody could do. If it's not ... if there's still a chance ... I can't, don't you see? I can't just set it aside and sleep, not until I know."

"Sometimes it's necessary," Rebecca told him. "Patience is a vital survival skill for a agent."

"I'm not an agent," Jules fired back. He looked like he regretted the sharp tone; his voice softened into a plea. "I know I'm not as old or as tough or as skilled as you are." His look took in both Foggs. "I understand why sometimes you treat me like a child. But please, not this time. I can't take it. Alexandre is too important to me."

Passepartout, standing by the tea tray, looked an eloquent plea on behalf of his countryman. Fogg glanced back at Rebecca; her eyes held fond, amused resignation. _Go on -- you will anyway._ "Passepartout," Fogg said, "How quickly can you produce a hot meal and a dry change of clothes that will fit Verne?"

"Instant as pie, master!" Passepartout grinned. "And packing the trunks takes not ten minutes ..."

"No baggage. It would slow us down too much. We'll buy anything we need." Fogg tucked a sheaf of bank notes into his smoking jacket and handed another to Rebecca. "But I do think a change of clothes would be wise for the rest of us as well. I didn't like the lack of suitable equipment when we found ourselves in the seventeenth century. Let's try to do better this time."

\----

Fogg took care with his own preparations. The difference between a clean shave or six hours' worth of stubble, or a plain wool suit instead of a Harris tweed, had no tactical significance but the familiar ritual helped him focus. _The readiness is all._ Insofar as he could, he tried to put the encounter with his older self and especially the upcoming row with Rebecca entirely out of his mind. She was too much the professional to squabble with him in the middle of a mission. He was still appalled that the visitor -- it was hard to think of the man as himself when the fellow was so damnably flippant -- had blurted out such a private matter where Rebecca could hear it and be hurt. _Utterly heartless. As if he came here purposely to upset her._

Fogg took still more care with weaponry, far more equipment than he usually carried. It was unlikely that if he lost the stiletto from his left sleeve, for example, he'd have time to reach the secondary blades behind his coat lapels. Nevertheless, arming himself with everything that ingenuity and paranoia could suggest was a distinct comfort. The mission as such should be simple enough. Only the time travel aspect made it at all extraordinary, and no amount of weaponry would help if that end of things went wrong. A trip to Paris then, nothing more, and Paris was almost a second home to him. Fogg brought out a coil of rough-edged wire, with a ring on either end to make a serviceable hacksaw, which fit neatly into the back of his watch case. He considered a second full-sized revolver, but decided it would spoil the line of his coat and settled for the sleeve derringer. He left his room, trying to escape the foreboding that he might never see it again.

Rebecca, a few doors down the hall, was closing her own door. Her posture was stiffly correct. Phileas diagnosed body armor or her leather fighting suit or both under the high-collared blue dress. He approved. Her only visible accessory was a small reticule, but he had no doubt she exceeded his weight of weaponry by something like a three-to-two margin. "It's a wonder you can stand upright," he remarked.

"You had a point about adequate equipment," Rebecca said dryly. "I do listen on the occasions when you make sense."

The mission hadn't started yet, of course. Phileas squared his shoulders as if facing a physical threat. "I am sorry you had to hear that."

Her light blue eyes burned like gas flames. She shifted the small bag from one hand to the other, a tense gesture like a tiger flexing its claws. "Of course you are. Not sorry that you've laid out these detailed rules for when you're allowed to commit suicide. Not even sorry to make me into your excuse. You're sorry you got _caught_ at it. That makes everything all right."

Her eyes were locked on his, demanding. Fogg considered the kind of words she wanted. _I promise to go on living, no matter what happens to you._ Rebecca at least could never catch him breaking his oath. But it would remain a lie all the same. Too often he'd found life a burden even while she was alive and well. The thought of days and weeks and years without her was a horror beyond contemplation. "Ask me for anything else," he said quietly. "But not that. Your life is your own to risk; I do accept that. Leave mine to me."

She was always fair-skinned, the porcelain complexion that went with her blazing hair. Now Rebecca turned still paler. Fear or anger, he couldn't be sure. Normally Phileas could guess her thoughts well enough but her blank expression was like a wall between them. Her knuckles were white too, gripping the purse. "Jules will be expecting us downstairs." Rebecca swept past him in a swirl of skirts. Phileas followed her, aching.

\----

The four of them met out in the back garden, inside the _Phoenix_. Jules Verne was freshly dressed in an assortment of clothes that looked to have been borrowed from Passepartout and some of the other servants. It gave the young man a slightly Bohemian air that might get him thrown out of a formal dinner but that would perfectly suit the parts of Paris they were likely to visit. He'd been fed, and had recovered his stamina with the irritating ease of extreme youth. His color was better now, his eyes determined but not desperate. The trembling was gone even from the small muscles in his hands. He grasped the meaning of the _Phoenix's_ new controls with scarcely a word of prompting, and had the emotional energy to be curious about them. "I can't figure out how the numbers move," Jules said. He fingered a small rivet which had a cross-shaped indentation at its center. "I'd swear that's a screw head. With the right tool I can open it up ..."

"For all I know, you may be the one who built it," Fogg said. He tried to keep his tone civil. Verne didn't deserve the overflow of other arguments. "Our future selves went to a great deal of trouble to make certain we couldn't do anything to the ship besides use it once. Perhaps we should take that as our cue, and focus on changing the past at the moment instead of figuring out the future."

"I did make to look at the newspapers in the library," Passepartout reported. "Not finding any other about M. Dumas." He held up the original newspaper clipping Verne had brought them as proof.

Rebecca glanced at the obituary between the two men's shoulders, then at the numbers on the control panel. "It appears we'll have some hours to find Dumas before the fight. Unless anyone has any last minute changes of plan?"

Everyone hung back, waiting for someone else to speak. They'd done this once, accidentally triggering the _Phoenix's_ controls in a scuffle without knowing what function the machine served. Traveling back in time in cold blood took a little more resolution, even for people used to more ordinary forms of danger. "Well, then." Fogg reached out and firmly pushed the red button.

It was like the disorientation he'd felt in the library, many times stronger. The faint light from outside, where the gaslights outside the back door just reached to the _Phoenix's_ windows, blurred and changed to a vague gold. The sky lightened and darkened, west to east, and then repeated itself.

Rebecca, to his left, had trembled once when the disorientation first hit them and braced herself on her cousin's shoulder. Her chin came up now, a trick they both had of defying fear with a head-on counterattack. "One wonders what it would be like to open the door and step outside right now," she said in a dryly academic tone.

Jules, at Fogg's other side, swallowed hard and stared at Rebecca in panic; well, he hadn't known her long. Or perhaps he had a keen insight. Phileas rested a hand on her arm, tried to match the calm tone. "One should go on wondering."

The light outside turned abruptly dim. A visceral shock went through them, like being in a train which had come to a sudden stop. The lighted numbers on the console changed and then winked out entirely.

"Is it over?" Jules said. "I guess it must be. We ought to leave before the ship goes somewhere else." He didn't move toward the door.

"Is never going to be a popular way to travel," Passepartout offered. "Horse and carriage, much better."

They left the _Phoenix_ one at a time. The environment was familiar, when their eyes had adjusted to the dimness. It was the rented cellar where Alexandre Dumas had originally built the device. "Hopefully Dumas hasn't changed his customary haunts too much since we last saw him," Fogg remarked, still standing on the narrow outer deck of the time ship. "That trinket of the Cardinal's you left him, Verne, should have paid his debts for at least a few months. What was the name of the tavern where he was attacked?"

"Eight Horses." Rebecca didn't have to look at the newspaper clipping.

"I've never been there, but I think I've heard of it," Jules said. He was leaning meditatively on the side of the Phoenix with one palm. "There has to be some way we can keep this ship, you know. If we could learn how to use it ..."

"A friend of Rebecca's from the future," Fogg drawled the words with precise disdain, "assures us that would be a great error of judgement. I'm reluctant to go against that warning without a concrete end in view." He hopped down to the cellar floor.

The _Phoenix_ shimmered in place. Jules, still touching it, yelped as if he'd been shocked. He flinched back; then his jaw set and he grabbed with both hands for the ship's railing. Phileas Fogg, beside him, moved faster. He caught the young Frenchman unceremoniously by the neck of his jacket and dragged him back like a kitten. The ship faded away like a mist. A brief wind rose in the enclosed cellar as air filled the hole it had left behind.

"I don't think that would have been very safe," Fogg said. He released Verne's coat.

"I might have had it." Jules re-settled his clothes, glowering. "Some sort of weight-dependent system -- when it felt the ship go back to its empty weight some mechanism sent it away in time. If we'd guessed, we could have brought a big rock or something."

"Don't get distracted by clever gadgets," Rebecca said softly. "We aren't here to steal a time ship for a pleasure cruise -- we're here to keep M. Dumas from dying. Tonight."

Jules looked stricken. "I'm sorry." Passepartout patted the young man reassuringly on the arm.

\----

It was dark outside when they emerged into a narrow Paris street. A church clock a few blocks away diverged from Fogg's pocket watch by some six hours -- or a few days. He considered resetting his watch, a little queasily, and decided to leave it as it was for the moment.

Jules Verne, still subdued, seemed to be thinking along similar lines. "If it's really last Saturday," he muttered, "I could send a telegram to myself -- my other self -- in Calais. Or to the three of you in London."

"Apparently you're going to resist the temptation," Rebecca said. "None of us received any such message. We'd remember." Fogg pondered the remarks his own "other self" had made about being a possibility rather than a certainty and wondered if it was that simple. The whole concept gave him a dull ache in mid-forehead.

After six blocks and a wrong turn or two, Jules led them down a half-flight of stairs in a narrow, twisting stone street to a door which read _Chevaux Huit_ in uneven, faded paint. The structure had fallen on hard times but its original fabric, of well-cut stone, remained sound despite lichen and smoke staining the surface. It was easy to imagine Athos or D'Artagnan themselves visiting this tavern when the building was new. The space inside, a single large room, was noisy and rank with too many unwashed bodies.

For all of his social blunders in more formal settings, Jules and his Bohemian attire fit in here like a pilot fish in a school of sharks. Passepartout made himself just as unremarkable, despite his upper-class servant's clothes, by some mystic valet's art. It was the Foggs, too rich and well-dressed and far too foreign, who were drawing stares. Phileas pondered the chances that they might cause the brawl they'd come to stop. "We should circulate and get out quickly if we can," he said in an undertone. Rebecca, clinging close to his arm like a conventional lady, nodded a fraction.

Jules had set off through the crowd at an apparently random angle chosen either by inspiration or by his better knowledge of Dumas' habits. Now his voice rose above the din in a whoop of enthusiasm. Rebecca smiled indulgently; the two Foggs smoothly changed direction, moving as one.

They found their friend at a shabby table in a back corner, hugging Dumas like a lost child reunited with a parent. Jules' eyes were sparkling with tears of relief. Alexandre Dumas, who was not entirely sober, primarily looked puzzled by the attention. "There, now." He patted Jules uncertainly on the back; the younger man failed to take the hint and let go. "Good evening," Dumas addressed the Foggs over Jules' shoulder. "It's been a while ... is something wrong?" From his glance back toward Jules, he seemed to regard the problem as his friend's sudden lack of emotional equilibrium. He let his arm rest protectively around Verne's shoulders.

"We've been warned that your life's in serious danger, M. Dumas," Rebecca told him. "It's a bit complex to explain here. We'd do better to get you somewhere quieter and more private."

"Especially private." The hairs were standing up on the back of Phileas' neck. Knowing that they were launched on the process of changing the past -- even if it was currently the present -- felt like hurling a rock on an Alpine glacier and watching the avalanche. His right hand was close to his pistol. He felt unshakably certain that an enemy was watching them.

Dumas gently peeled Jules' arms from around his neck. "I believe I have mentioned before, Mademoiselle, that I will gladly follow you anywhere -- provided you call me Alexandre." Rebecca was sufficiently charmed to smile in response.

Fogg seethed quietly to himself. The situation was far too dangerous to allow the distraction of a personal spat. "Let's go, then." Passepartout was approaching from another part of the crowd; Phileas waited for the valet to reach them before urging their whole small party toward the door.

A minor, wordless disagreement ensued. Dumas, though lacking the foreknowledge of the others, was well aware that the tavern was an unsafe environment. His instinct, reinforced by the deep vein of chivalry in his soul, was to put Rebecca in the safer zone in the middle of their group. Hers, and everyone else's, was to put Dumas in that relative position. The conflicting priorities led to considerable jostling until Rebecca let Dumas take her arm. Jules and Passepartout fell in on either side of the pair, while Fogg himself took point. Rebecca kept close to Dumas, making the novelist happily red-faced and not incidentally shielding him from any potential gunfire to their right. Fogg made a mental note, by analogy, that Jules' fervent hugging of his older friend at first sight may have been more practical-minded than it looked. He continued scanning the crowd in full paranoia mode, prepared to shoot instantly and damn the consequences if anyone got in their way. No one did. The tavern's clientele seemed highly perceptive about certain specific subjects.

The chill early-winter air of the street outside was a physical relief as well as an emotional one after the stifling heat of the overcrowded tavern. Jules sagged visibly when they got outdoors. "Thank God. We did it; you're safe now, Alexandre."

Phileas hated it when people said things like that. "Relatively safe, not absolutely. Heading off one disaster's no guarantee another can't lurk around the next corner -- and I doubt we'll be given a second chance to recover any other mistakes. Any deaths that happen from here on out are permanent."

"Life's back to normal, then," Rebecca remarked. The prospect of action made her eyes glitter. She still had one hand on Dumas' arm, the picture of modestly ladylike grace, and she had three weapons in reach that Fogg knew of.

Dumas released Rebecca's hand in order to face each of the four for a good look, one after the other. "I am _not_ that drunk," he enunciated distinctly. "Therefore you actually said that. Therefore something bizarre has occurred. Would anyone care to tell me what it is?"

"This still isn't a good place." No one else was in sight on the street, but there were too many upstairs windows on both sides for Fogg to keep track of without constantly turning his head. "Where do you live now, M. Dumas?"

"I ... there have been some financial reverses." Dumas looked fixedly at the cobblestones of the street. "I expect I'll wind up visiting my son. Again."

Phileas recalled that Dumas had a grown son, several years older than Verne, who had something of a literary career of his own. The younger Dumas' reputation was not on the same scale as his father's, but he'd had considerably more success at holding on to the proceeds of his writing. Phileas supposed it said something in Dumas' favor that he was reluctant to lean on family charity. "Don't worry about that. We have to find somewhere to stay in any case," Fogg said. "Anything nearby that has accommodations, at this point."

Dumas named a boarding house which proved to be two blocks back the way they had come. The _concierge_ recognized Dumas, a few minutes later, with more disdain than welcome. A few British bank notes brightened the man's mood considerably. A few more produced the admission that there were rooms available to rent, three of them on the same floor -- just below the attic, not of the finest quality, but with a stairwell entirely to themselves. Fogg was getting tired after his unnaturally prolonged day. It annoyed him more than it should have that proximity to Alexandre Dumas had put them into the category of customer asked to pay in advance. Rebecca, well aware of his mood, silenced Phileas with a discreet kick to one ankle and carried on with the negotiations herself.

Pounds sterling were exchanged for three keys with (Phileas suspected) a slight surcharge for being friends of Dumas. They waved aside the assistance of a yawning teenaged page, since none of them had any luggage, and went to find their rooms themselves. Although the rooming house was far from first-class, the layout seemed ideal. As promised, the rooms in question were in an annex of the building which had no direct connection to the rest of the top floor. The staircase dead-ended at their three rooms and nothing else, so they could feel almost as much privacy as if they'd engaged a connected suite. Fogg began to breathe more easily, when they were alone in the enclosed space, than he had since that first moment of intertemporal nausea in his own home. "Thank God for that. I almost felt that someone had been following us from the tavern."

Rebecca was checking one room after the other along the small hallway, a silver-chased derringer in hand. She stopped. "I was watching, and I didn't see anyone," she said doubtfully.

Phileas sighed. He knew that his cousin had great respect for his training and skills at intelligence tradecraft -- and rather less confidence in his mental equilibrium. Since he agreed with the second opinion no less than the first, it was hard to debate the point with her. "I confess I didn't see anyone either, not even a shadow," Fogg said. "It would take the highest caliber of professional to elude us both -- and probably considerable luck on his side. I may just be tired. We could keep a watch, I suppose." He checked the third room himself, his own full-sized pistol at the ready.

Alexandre Dumas was beginning to look more than a little irritated. "Would someone mind explaining what we're watching for?"

"Very well." Phileas faced the older man. He leaned one hip against the frame of an open doorway to give his tired legs some rest; the others clustered around. "Even Jules hasn't heard half of the latest parts. I should go back a bit. When you showed us the _Phoenix_ a few months ago, you told us you'd built it from Richlieu's plans without knowing what it was. We accidentally found out the answer to that question; it's a time ship. As an ordinary ship moves through the ocean, or my dirigible moves through the air, your _Phoenix_ can go from point to point in time at will. Although we didn't have much control over the steering, as it turned out. We were fortunate to get back with our lives."

Dumas' eyes were gleaming with real interest. "Where did you go? Or when, I should say?"

"Right into the path of your Cardinal Richlieu; about 1640, I think," Phileas said. "The Sun King was twenty or so, and Richlieu was trying to have him poisoned." It seemed better to omit the part about several of the people they'd met in the past being doppelgangers of themselves -- including a historical Porthos who resembled Dumas. "The attempt failed. Passepartout was able to learn enough about the controls to bring us home." The valet beamed at the implied praise. "The ship seemed to be more of a danger than an asset at that point, so we let it float off by itself in the stream of time. Our one priority by then was to get rid of it."

Dumas' jaw set. "You might have told me so. Considering that I'd spent two years of my life and a considerable sum of money building the device in the first place."

"There wasn't any other choice, Alexandre," Jules put in with quiet intensity. "It was the scariest thing I've ever been involved in -- and after the last year, that's saying a lot. There's more, too. I wrote you about America -- what I didn't tell you was that while we were there we met someone who was trying to rebuild the _Phoenix_. A young inventor named Al Edison -- and he'd gotten the design from Aztec stone carvings in Mexico that were hundreds of years old. His version could only go from place to place, not time to time, but that was bad enough. They were going to use it in their Civil War like some kind of siege engine. All we could think was that the original _Phoenix_ had been bouncing back and forth in time completely at random."

Phileas caught Verne's eye and took back the thread of the conversation. "I'm not sure how someone would catch a runaway time ship like a runaway horse, but the trick was apparently managed. Tonight the _Phoenix_ appeared in my back garden in London, apparently under very accurate control. I say 'tonight' because I haven't seen the sun come up since. In fact, it was nearly a week from now. The four of us were brought back in time to prevent you from being murdered in that tavern tonight, Dumas."

Jules held out his ragged-edged newspaper clipping. Alexandre Dumas read it over silently, to all appearances becoming more sober by the second. "This could easily be a hoax," he said. "Any printer's shop could have made this to order; there's no proof of anything you've told me."

"It really happened, Alexandre," Jules said. "Or it was going to ... this paper was days old when I saw it in Calais. You were killed and buried. At least you would've been, if we hadn't gotten you out of that tavern tonight. And we don't know why it happened, or why we were allowed to come back and help."

"You keep saying allowed and brought back," Dumas said sharply. "By who?"

"The pilot of the time ship was myself," Phileas admitted. "A future self -- about sixty to all appearances, and with a damnable taste for striking enigmatic poses. I suppose I'd better start from the beginning."

He made the recitation as detailed as any after-mission report, since Rebecca had missed half of the evening's events and Verne even more. He drew on _nota bene_ for a word-for-word repetition of his older self's spoken remarks -- the smug delivery made him suspect that many of them had a double meaning -- but summarized at many other points, such as his own conflicts with the man. Dumas seemed particularly fascinated by their brief scuffle in the garden. "So this ... older twin ... could feel exactly what you were thinking and doing?" the author asked.

"Nothing so direct. He could remember having been me, and recall what he'd done and felt at the time." Phileas would have preferred to skim over that portion of the evening. "At any rate, he seems to have told us the truth in the essentials. We did find you where and when we expected to find you, and you could have easily been killed in a brawl in those social circles."

"I think you may have exaggerated ideas about Montmartre," Dumas said. "I admit _les_ _Chevaux Huit_ can be a bit lively. I have seen fights there, especially on Saturday nights. But I've never known anyone to be killed. I certainly wouldn't wade into the middle of such a fight myself. I'm an old man, Mr. Fogg. You don't live to be old without learning a thing or two. When tankards and fists start flying, I generally hide under the table."

Rebecca, already familiar with the points being discussed, had been talking quietly to Passepartout a little distance away. "Accidents can happen anywhere," she said. "Some drunkard in the crowd discharging a pistol without intending to hit you. The important thing is that you are safe now. I suggest that we retire, if you two are quite finished growling at each other. A night's sleep would do us all a world of good."

"Dear lady, you are as wise as you are beautiful." Dumas swept up her hand and kissed the first knuckle briefly. "However much or little danger I may have been in, you certainly took risks with the intent of saving my life. I would be a cad if I were not eternally grateful. Monsieur, Mademoiselle." He bowed toward them all and moved a little unsteadily into the first bedroom.

They'd all seen, when the doors were opened, that the first and third bedrooms along the corridors had two beds each while the middle room held a single one. "I'll look after him," Jules said quietly. "The important thing is that we saved his life, whether he believes it or not. I'll never be able to repay you for this." He followed his friend into the first room and closed the door.


	3. Securus te Projice (Throw Yourself Down Safely)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The return of the Phoenix time machine draws Fogg and company through time to save the life of an old friend.

Rebecca Fogg wasn't sure she was going to be able to sleep tonight. But she was grateful all the same for the solitary quiet of her temporary room in the Paris boarding house. She lit a single candle on the dressing table. Rebecca settled herself in a nearby chair, disciplining mind and body alike into a semblance of calm that was almost a reality. She folded her hands on her lap. _Nota bene._ The recent past came alive for her trained memory.  
  
\-----  
  
The only word to describe Rebecca's reaction to the older version of her cousin, she'd thought a trifle giddily, was enchantment. It hadn't been the sudden widening of the gap in their ages from just over six years to something like twenty-six. Older men as such had no special fascination for her. But this one had been Phileas, freed from the corrosive despair that had darkened so much of his life. It had looked like true release, not just one of his periodic lighter moods. However welcome those were, they always had a frantic edge born of the knowledge that the respite was temporary. This had been stable, deep-rooted contentment. Rebecca hadn't seen Phileas in that state since they were children together. She'd given up hope of ever seeing it again. This other Phileas had known the secret, and she wanted it.   
  
Her own Phileas had been bristling with dislike for the older man. Rebecca couldn't blame him. The other's self-assurance must have made him feel his own unhappiness twice as badly. Rebecca hadn't had time to take that into account. When the entire party had left the library, she'd fallen into step with the older man like a co-conspirator. "I have about a thousand questions." There'd been no point in dissembling, not with him.   
  
"For you, I'll answer anything." His voice had been warm velvet.   
  
"What happened to you?"   
  
He hadn't pretended to misunderstand. Whatever the years had brought hadn't included false modesty. "Why, you did. You saved me."  
  
Rebecca had clamped down control of her face and body language, to keep any hint of shock from reaching the Phileas beside her or especially her own Phileas walking behind them. _So. This is how it ends_. She'd always known the choice she would make, if it truly was her career and independence against her cousin's life. She had nearly done it in America, during the harrowing weeks when leaving him alone for ten minutes risked finding him dead, but the crisis had passed in time. She could imagine him vividly, still and broken. Nothing was worth that. Rebecca had straightened her spine. Phileas loved her tenderly, that part would be all very well, but the sacrifice of everything else in her life ...  
  
"Dear Becca. Sometimes you have a touch of the family pessimism yourself." The man beside her hadn't missed a single nuance despite her efforts at self-control. His eyes had been intense, drawing her in. "You're wrong. I could never become happy by making you miserable. And you could never hide it, if you felt stifled; you aren't made to be a stoic martyr. Thank God. Any solution has to content us both, or none." A near-smile had crossed his face. "You must resign yourself to being a bit selfish, for both our sakes."  
  
That ruled out everything. "Then how?"  
  
The other Phileas had looked maddeningly inscrutable. Then they'd been at the _Phoenix_ , and the scrap of privacy had been gone. A few minutes later he'd dropped that sudden bombshell about her own Phileas quietly planning to die if she did. She couldn't blame the older man for his timing, given his limited options, but it had stopped her before she began from any sort of lighthearted attitude toward her cousin's future.   
  
\-----  
  
Rebecca's head was aching dully, in the present; she couldn't decide if it was the aftereffects of _nota bene_ or sheer worry. She slowly unwound her clasped hands in her lap. She knew Phileas far too well. His remark about death meant no ordinary pining but direct action, probably a large-caliber bullet through his own head beside her grave. The risk was intolerable. If Phileas needed her, then clearly he had to have her.  
  
She thought over possible complications. While her sexual history contained nowhere near the operatic disasters of Phileas' own, there was more of it than Rebecca had felt it good for him to know. A few suitors whose attentions she'd let exceed the platonic would be no surprise to him. She'd made no secret of those, the better to keep him from asking deeper questions. There'd been a mission or two, like the enticement of Duke Rimini but more so, which she and Sir Jonathan had agreed should be kept out of the departmental files. Her cousin had occasional fits of curiosity which no lock or safe was guaranteed proof against. And there'd been the horrific near-miss when she was captured in Vienna, that not even her superiors knew of ... but the man was too dead to spread stories. Revenge was a fine medicine. She'd shed far more of his blood than he ever had of hers, and even the nightmares had stopped three years since.   
  
Those indulgences -- and impositions -- had been rare and without lasting consequences. Rebecca was familiar with the methods that disreputable women used to avoid pregnancy. She had used some of the safer ones to improve her odds. But none of that was likely to be enough in the case of a frequent, long-lasting sexual affair. If she partnered herself with Phileas, in the long run she would become pregnant. And he would marry her, if he hadn't already -- his honor would allow no less. Every skill she'd learned in her adventurous adult life, the hard-won respect of her professional peers, the independence of living on equal terms in a man's world -- all would be no more than a memory. _It's only retirement. It's no more than Phileas has already done himself._ But that half-truth was no comfort.   
  
She would do without comfort. Rebecca was trained to make hard decisions, to die or kill with equal facility in the service of the cause she was pledged to. This was no different. Ruthlessly she called up the image of Phileas dying or dead and made herself feel it as an immediate reality. _Is that what you want? No? Then stop it from happening._  
  
 _You must resign yourself to being a little selfish, for both our sakes._ The older Phileas' words came back to her with perfect fidelity. But the advice was no help, without knowing what he'd meant by it. _You and your enigmatic remarks._ Rebecca could only do her best, and hope it was enough.   
  
She'd brought a small arsenal along on this trip but no change of clothes, not even a nightdress. What looked like an ordinary gentlewoman's day dress was little more than a cleverly shaped fabric shell over a layer of heavy equipment. Rebecca laid the outer dress down on her bed and began disarming. A derringer, daggers, a garrote or two, money belt, equipment pouches. Under that, the more standard feminine gear of a hoop skirt -- although the largest hoop on this one could be reformed into a powerful recurve bow, with a little setup time. Under that, a form-fitting leather fighting suit of her own design. Rebecca loved the outfit with a passion. It offered her complete freedom of movement, better protection than male-styled clothing, and any number of places to hang tools and weapons. It gave her confidence when she launched herself into combat with larger, stronger opponents. She stripped it off.  
  
Under that, essentially nothing but herself. The leather suit fit too tightly to allow more than the most minimal and gauzy underclothes. Rebecca shivered a little. _Well, it's a cold room._ She put the outer dress back on over nearly bare skin. It trailed the ground without the hoops holding the skirt out from her body, but it approximated a modest dressing gown well enough to pass in semi-public for brief periods. She pulled pin after pin from her hair until it cascaded loosely down her back. She blew out the single candle.  
  
They'd been given three rooms, side by side, on the top floor of the rooming house. Rebecca's bare feet were silent on the wooden hall floor as she closed the door to her own room. Memory took her back, only a quarter-hour or so. _Two rooms with two beds each, one with one. That would put Dumas and Verne in one room, myself alone in another, and you and Phileas in the third. Does that make sense, Passepartout?_ The valet had agreed. _After he's asleep, see if they can find you a couch or something in their room._  
  
He'd stared at her. _Miss Rebecca?_  
  
She could be cold, and she had turned that aspect on him. _Or you can wait a bit and use my room._ The stare had turned to an open-mouthed gape as he understood her at last. _Not a word._ She had known Passepartout would obey her, even though his first loyalty was to Phileas -- no, because his first loyalty was to Phileas. They had that in common.   
  
The hallway was empty. The door to the third bedroom was unlocked, as she'd expected. Rebecca opened it quietly and slipped inside. Phileas stayed asleep when she closed the bedroom door, which she hadn't expected. She couldn't believe he would let his guard down to such an extent in a strange place. Maybe his sleeping senses had mistaken her for the valet. Or perhaps -- she paused, still in arm's reach of the closed door -- some half-aware part of him knew her.  
  
She waited, letting her eyes adjust to the light level. They were too near the center of Paris for total darkness. A thin curtain drawn most of the way across the window blocked some of the light outside, but enough seeped through to show her the room in shades of darker and lighter gray. He was lying on his side in the middle of the larger bed, under the window. The less dim strip of light at the edge of the curtain crossed his form at chest level. The skin of an arm and shoulder gleamed above the covers. With no more luggage than she, he was sleeping naked or close to it. _At the very least, this will be easy._  
  
Her hem swirled against the floor as she moved toward the bed. Rebecca considered sitting on the edge, gathered her skirt around her instead and sank to her knees on the floor beside it. The bed was low, putting her head and chest to mid-breast above the level of the mattress. She contemplated his bare shoulder, and her own hands -- suddenly ice cold -- and touched a blanket-covered part of Phileas' back.  
  
He stirred, not the sharp jerk usual for sudden awakenings but a seamless transition to awareness. His life had depended on that ability, at times. Phileas identified her in the bad light and pulled the covers up over his bare shoulders. "Rebecca? You shouldn't ... what are you doing here?"  
  
A half-naked woman appearing in a half-naked man's bedroom in the middle of the night shouldn't have to explain herself, in Rebecca's opinion. "Be quiet." She slid both her hands around the back of his head and kissed him hard on the mouth.   
  
That seemed to have resolved the ambiguity nicely. Phileas came upright in the bed, knocking the covers down to waist level, and clasped Rebecca to him with both arms. _He's hairier than I'd thought._ When she melted against his chest she felt him discover the yielding nudity under her dress. He made an appreciative sound in his throat, and deepened the kiss. _He's good at it, anyway ..._ She could have done this years ago.   
  
He unclamped from her mouth as Rebecca was beginning to see spots from lack of oxygen. She gasped, dizzy from need and breathlessness alike, as his hands moved along her ribs and the sides of her breasts. Phileas began undoing the hook-and-eye fasteners of the high-necked dress. When she was open to the collarbones his mouth fixed on one side of her neck, hard enough to hurt, reminding her wildly of vampires. But his teeth were blunt and moving, teasing sensation from an earlobe one instant and the soft top of her shoulder the next. His hands went momentarily to her waist, pulling her onto the bed, and then came up again to cup her breasts directly. It felt good, intensely good, but that very intensity was a little alarming. She had no intention of stopping, but she wondered fleetingly if a stop signal would be heeded anyway. Phileas was going after more fasteners, with increasing urgency. His fingers fumbled. The room was silent, except for their breathing. She clearly heard thread snap and a small metal hook fall to the floor. The front of the dress was open to the waist now, baring her breasts and stomach. His mouth was hot and wet against her skin. She heard a small whimper, in her own voice. All her muscles tensed before she could countermand the impulse. Her nerve wavered. Rebecca stopped herself from squirming out of his arms only by a sharp effort of will.  
  
She was suddenly, dizzily off balance; Phileas had let go of her. The mattress shook as he moved away. His silhouette showed against the curtain and then it was flung wide open, bathing both of them in more light. "What are you doing here." Nothing alluring or allured in the words this time. It was his harshest public voice, crisp-edged, and it was scarcely a question.   
  
Rebecca had anger of her own for an ally. "You seemed to be grasping the idea well enough a moment ago."   
  
"Do you know, I'm not sure I was. They're very nice tits, I'd be the last to deny that." He brought out the deliberate vulgarity as if presenting a winning poker hand to a despised opponent. "But counterbalanced by the impression that one's about to be vomited on, it's very nearly not worth it ... why bother at all if the prospect's so distasteful to you?"   
  
The room was still three-quarters dark, surely too dark for him to see her face change. But Phileas seemed to sense it all the same. His voice was glacial. "I didn't ask for your damned pity. Get out."  
  
Her temper snapped. Rebecca came upright, braced on her knees. She responded not with a maidenly open-handed slap but a straight right, from the hip, fit to break a man's jaw. Phileas, bristling with tension, was ready for anything. He twisted aside like a bullfighter, knocking her fist off-line with a forearm and sliding the arm down to capture her wrist. Rebecca tried to use the recoil to slither out of his grip, but the mattress was an unstable fighting surface. She lost her center of balance for a fraction of a second. The next instant she was spun around, her back pressed tightly against his bare chest, with her wrists crossed in front of her in an iron grip. No affection in the clutch; not even any prurient interest, though his bare arms felt burning hot to Rebecca where they crossed her breasts at the open front of the dress. "Do go away," he snarled in her ear.   
  
Rebecca couldn't break his grip -- he was ready for that too -- and damned if she was going to ask for release. "Isn't it what you always wanted?" she whispered back savagely. "Never mind my motives. You've been hinting forever that you wanted me, and saying outright that you wanted me out of the Service so I'd be safe. I'll do that too, if I have to. What have you got against winning?"   
  
No answer. His breath had turned harsher, and not from the brief fight. It had a note almost like desperation. Phileas released her wrists. "Give me a little credit," he said dully. Rebecca moved away from him without haste. The anger had left both of them. "Do you think after all this time I don't know you? If I'd ... blackmailed you with some weeping tale about not being able to survive without you, you'd hold yourself bound to take care of me. And bound is exactly how you'd feel. Don't you."   
  
She had no answer. Phileas didn't seem to need one. The toneless voice went on; this wasn't the first time he'd rehearsed this speech, whether he'd ever expected to say it aloud or not. "Better to keep my damned mouth shut and not interfere with your choices," he said. "You're not the kind of person who can be coerced, or should be. The chance of seeing you die on duty was less terrible than the certainty of having you come to hate me. I've known that for a long time. I don't know why that ... elderly bastard in the time machine forgot it, and I can't get at him now."  
  
"He's you," Rebecca said again. "He meant well. I don't know what he meant to do, but I'm certain of that much."  
  
Phileas shook his head, dismissing her words. "Please go. We needn't talk about it any more. Perhaps we can go back to the way things were, given enough time."   
  
Rebecca doubted that with her whole heart. But she couldn't refuse him. _I meant well, too. I do love you; that's why the risk of losing you is intolerable._ It was the worst possible time to say so. Phileas had pulled the covers back over himself, curling up on his side. She gathered the loose edges of her dress together and reached for the doorknob. Rebecca stopped. "Phileas ..."  
  
His voice shook with rage bordering on hysteria. "What _now_?"  
  
Rebecca had forgotten the state of her clothes. She pressed a palm against the wooden panel, jerked it back. "This door is red hot."  
  
Their training allowed both of them to switch mental gears. Rebecca inhaled deeply and smelled what she'd missed before, a persistent reek of smoke. Phileas slid out from under the covers, _not quite naked after all,_ she noted with a detachment impossible moments ago, and touched the door too. "The others -- Jules, and Dumas."  
  
"I sent Passepartout to their room," Rebecca said. "He was a Paris fireman -- if he can't get them out I doubt we could. Probably safe already. God, we're fools."  
  
"Later." Phileas left the door as it was and went back to the window. "I didn't notice gas laid on anywhere in this hotel, did you?" Rebecca shook her head. "Perhaps the building won't explode, at least ... no balcony this side, damn it. Maybe a ledge or trellis."   
  
The smell of smoke was stronger now, if Rebecca wasn't imagining it. She very much feared not. When Phileas opened the window it grew even stronger as fresh air was drawn through the room. _Like a chimney._ "There isn't much time. If we tear the bed sheets ..."  
  
Phileas had his head out the window. "The wall looks passable. I'd rather trust handholds than an improvised rope." He straightened up. "And quite a crowd to watch the fun." He reached for his trousers, fastened them hastily at the waist. "Ladies first."   
  
Rebecca fastened the first few hooks and eyes she could find on her dress. They seemed subtly mis-aligned, but at least her chest was covered. "Don't dawdle." She clambered feet-first through the window.  
  
Phileas' description of the situation had been informative in every detail. It was an eminently climbable wall, old brick with wide mortar channels for her fingers and toes and better yet a drain pipe in arm's reach. The crowd he'd mentioned was there as well, clustering in the narrow street in the eternally Parisian urge to be at the center of the action. Rebecca wondered how much of a show she was putting on, in her ill-fastened dress, and dismissed the problem as impossible to solve. Groups of the bystanders were holding outstretched blankets like trampolines, urging her to jump to safety. _From three floors up? Thank you, no._ One little knot of figures waved urgently at her. She was nearly sure it was Jules, Passepartout, and M. Dumas; a weight left her heart. A glance upward showed her Phileas joining her on the wall seconds before flames blossomed through the open window. An unbuttoned shirt flapped around him like a white flag. _Damn his vanity. I suppose I should be grateful he didn't stop for cufflinks and all._ Rebecca continued climbing downward methodically.   
  
\-----  
  
The bedroom was well alight before Phileas Fogg had thrown on clothes and other essentials and all but dived out the window. He could imagine Rebecca's forthcoming lecture on the subject. She'd be scathing about his losing focus in a crisis, and worse yet she'd be right. He was shaken, more so than a professional had any right to be with an immediate danger in view. The only point he could possibly make in his own defense -- if he'd had the effrontery to do so -- was that his loss of composure was entirely Rebecca's doing.   
  
Phileas was contemplating the death of hope. He'd always believed, with a faith beyond any attack from reason, that Rebecca's love could save him from himself if she chose. Even when they argued, even when separate duties called them to opposite ends of the globe, the possibility had been enough to keep him going through his darkest moments. It would be an earthly heaven, making up for all the deprivations either of them had ever suffered. It would be an endless extension of the best moments of their friendship and professional partnership, with the bonus of sexual access to her incredible beauty. Finally, when he'd almost lost sight of the dream, she'd come to him in reality ... and the longed-for transcendent experience had turned into a nightmare of missed signals and ruffled feelings.   
  
He'd wanted to give her something perfect. In the event, he'd been as gormless as some sweaty-palmed youth following her on the street. Worse, she'd been prepared to tolerate his fumbling -- out of compassion, not desire. He'd pleased enough women to know the difference. But worst of all, he'd barely had the willpower to turn her aside from her self-sacrifice. Rebecca's touch, her scent, were as intoxicating as his wildest expectations. He'd wanted so badly to seize the fleeting opportunity, to take whatever she'd allow him. Even if it was pity. Even if every other part of their relationship was irrevocably ruined in the process.   
  
Phileas' own weakness disgusted him. He seemed to have managed the worst of both worlds. Not enough contact to ease him, but enough to leave her feeling vaguely soiled. He shivered in sympathy with the memory of her ... perhaps not _quite_ revulsion, if God had any mercy, but certainly something far short of pleasure. Rebecca deserved so much better than that. Better than him, to cut to the core of the matter. Phileas had wrecked his only chance with her, and it was past time to accept that. His arms and legs kept moving of themselves, finding safe handholds on the rough wall by rote. Little besides responsibility for his friends kept his brain from overriding them and letting gravity have its way. Dropping a mere two and a half stories was too likely to leave him alive but maimed. Besides -- he glanced down the wall -- Rebecca hadn't reached the ground yet herself. He couldn't fall on her.   
  
He'd been keeping focus, ignoring the crowd and the sheer drop as a pointless distraction. Looking down now he saw them for the first time, a mass of humanity flowing like water toward the best vantage points or away from points of danger where part of the ground floor was beginning to burn. All but one. A single figure in the middle of the human tide was standing fast like a water-washed rock. The distance down and across was less than fifty feet now. Even at this angle the foreshortened silhouette was suddenly familiar. Fogg recognized the mortal danger even before he saw the gleam of a blue-steel gun barrel against the flames. The muzzle was aimed at only the slightest upward angle. Phileas went cold with horror. "Gun!" he shouted.  
  
Rebecca's own training was as ingrained as his. She instantly assessed the complete vulnerability of her position, some ten feet above ground level, and took cover in the only possible direction -- downward. It was not a fall but a backward leap, aimed at the nearest cluster of blanket-waving would-be rescuers. She landed less on the blanket itself than on the men holding it, bowling them over like tenpins. The whole knot of people went down. The well-meaning crowd surged close to help, surrounding Rebecca with as fine a bulletproof shield as the heart could desire. Fogg, twelve feet higher up the wall, had no such quick escape available. His back knotted as if muscle tension could turn aside gunshots. _Take the easy shot, damn you. Let that be enough revenge._ Nothing. Fogg waited another few breaths, until the bricks began to heat under his hands, and then climbed downward with reckless haste.   
  
He touched ground. The looming shadow in the crowd was gone. Phileas ran to Rebecca, who was still tangled up in a heap of rescuers. From the vigor of her movements she had no bones broken, not even any serious bruising. "You're all right." His brain could hold no more at the moment than that single fact.   
  
"Rebecca?" It was Jules, pushing through the crowd on the opposite side, slightly smoky but fully dressed and intact. "Thank God. We pounded on the wall of your room in case you were asleep, but you ..." Jules Verne's voice died away. Rebecca emerged from the blanket that had wrapped around her in her fall, and her dress was once more open to the waist. The few fasteners she'd gotten back together hadn't been up to the strain of climbing and leaping. "Oh." Jules' eyes moved to Fogg's equally disheveled clothing. The young man's face went very still, only one tight muscle jumping along his jaw betraying any reaction. "Excuse me." Jules turned away.   
  
"That will do, Verne," Fogg interrupted brusquely. He began to do up his shirt as quickly as he could. Rebecca, once more under cover of her blanket, was undertaking similar repairs. "We have much more immediate problems. Cavois was here -- or still is. I'll wager he had more than a little to do with the building catching fire an hour after we entered it."  
  
They were speaking English to each other. The crowd of Parisians, bored by their incomprehensible babble, was wandering off to watch something more interesting like the arrival of the fire engines. Passepartout and Alexandre Dumas joined their friends now, pushing through the thinning crowd. "Master! Thinking you were choked on the smoke," Passepartout said. "Very sudden to come up -- not a normal fire at all. Not helping but to wonder ..."  
  
"Yes, yes, we've done all that," Phileas snapped. "Arson, to drive us across his path like rats from a trap. It's Cavois. I saw him."  
  
Dumas looked from Phileas to Rebecca and made the same deductions that Jules had, although he merely raised an eyebrow in what looked like mild envy. "The same man you were hunting when we met last, who'd made a spy's code out of one of my books?"  
  
"And killed our code breaker, and had a try at the rest of us. The same," Phileas said. "Just now he tried to shoot Rebecca."  
  
"Or you," she suggested.  
  
Fogg shook his head. "He had an age to shoot me, if he'd wanted to. He was aiming at you. Because ..." His voice died out. _Because he knows it's the best way to make me suffer_ sounded incredibly self-centered. "Because he's playing with us. Again."  
  
Passepartout knew more of the truth than anyone else. He'd been with Phileas the night of the duel with Cavois. The valet's eyes were locked on Fogg's, warning or imploring that the others had a right to know the whole story. Fogg responded with an almost Gallic shrug of surrender. "We should get under cover," he temporized. "If there is any cover anywhere, after this. He might leave us alone for days or he might circle back in the next ten minutes. Terror is what the bastard wants." Phileas at least was obliging him, though he hoped it didn't show in his face and manner.  
  
"I must remember to thank him." Rebecca was looking up at the blazing windows with hard eyes. "All our equipment -- all _my_ equipment. My best fighting suit." She looked down at the cobblestones as if discovering her bare feet for the first time. "My blasted shoes."  
  
Dumas shrugged off his coat and draped it around her shoulders. "Your servant, mademoiselle, for whatever I have."  
  
That set off a train of association for Rebecca. "The money -- Phileas, we haven't got a penny between us."  
  
"It's not quite so bad." Phileas reached into a trouser pocket and displayed a small wad of bank notes. The outermost layer was slightly scorched. "One of the things I stopped for. It's not a lot, though."  
  
"How could Cavois find us, anyway?" Jules said with a clear determination not to agree with anyone named Fogg. "It's not as if he could have followed us into Paris -- we appeared out of thin air."  
  
Phileas made another mental connection. "You've never hunted, have you Jules? Chasing is an amateur's game, for something like foxes. You can rouse a pack of dogs and a string of horses and make all the noise you want, because it doesn't matter if you catch your prey or not. But if you're serious, if it's life or death whether you succeed -- big game like a bear or lion -- you don't chase at all. You put yourself in a place where you know the beast has to go, and you wait it out." He glanced across at Dumas. "I think I owe your tavern keeper an apology. You were right. You weren't killed by accident in a random fight. You were deliberately murdered, to draw us to Paris. And it did work, only the chain of cause and effect got a little twisted. We showed up before the murder -- so instead of committing it, Cavois went on to the next step of his plan. He must think he's got the luck of the gods on his side right now."  
  
"We really must convince him otherwise," Rebecca said in a chill, calm voice. "I'd like to make a project of it."  
  
"I think that choice is out of our hands," Fogg said. "Either we survive or he does; I don't see a third option. What's more, I don't see any way we can call for official assistance from the Service until our ... position in time is back to normal. We're still in London. Sir Jonathan knows that. If he gets a cry for help from Paris, he'll assume it's a forgery. Or he'll wire the London house -- and a version of you or me who's six days younger will quite sincerely deny every word."  
  
Rebecca smiled bitterly. "Damn Shakespeare."  
  
Jules stared. "Excuse me?"  
  
"Phileas' favorite play," she said. "'The time is out of joint -- oh cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right.'"


	4. Dulce et Decorum Est ... (It is sweet and seemly ...)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fogg and friends are misplaced in time, broke in Paris, and pursued by the implacable Cavois.

They fled like hunted animals. They walked several blocks in the darkened streets, Rebecca growing more footsore from lack of shoes on the filthy paving stones with every yard. After many turns and doublings back, even Phileas was willing to concede that they must have lost any possible shadow. He'd salvaged only one weapon from the fire, a two-shot derringer which he usually carried up one sleeve. Fogg kept the little gun in hand, finger on the trigger, throughout their wanderings. It would have gone hard with any milkman or homeward-bound drunk who crossed their path too closely. At various times in their history as a team, Rebecca and Jules and even Passepartout had exerted restraining influences on Phileas Fogg when one or all of them felt that he was leading the group in unwise directions. No one tried to do so now. Fogg's paranoia was their best chance of survival. Even Dumas, who knew least about the situation and had the greatest history of personal recklessness, was taking orders like a soldier.

It took a silent, painstaking examination of more than one darkened street of seedy tenements before they found what Fogg was looking for. An empty suite of rooms -- the bedraggled exterior and the fine layer of dust on stairs and doorknob made that clear -- with direct access from the ground floor. Phileas had helped himself to two or three pieces of stiff wire from various trash heaps they'd passed along the way. The lock in the door was large and crude; he was able to force the latch with his improvised lock picks without doing any damage visible from the outside. "Hurry," he whispered as soon as the door swung inward.

Rebecca had taken advantage of trash heaps as well. She now carried a two-foot chunk of steel rod as an improvised weapon. When the group crowded past Fogg through the open door she took the lead. A narrow flight of stairs led upward, and a door at the head of those stairs stood half open. "Wait..." Phileas whispered desperately.

Rebecca was already through the upstairs door. She swept quickly through the three nearly empty rooms, her metal bar held like a cavalry sabre. "Clear," she reported. "Nothing worse than dust, as far as I can see. Just keep quiet; no telling who lives downstairs."

Everyone shuffled upstairs, Fogg last. "I've gotten the door locked again," he whispered. The windows of the flat were uncurtained. Enough light seeped in to see by. Rebecca caught his sharp look of disapproval that she'd taken the task of searching unsecured territory. She stared impassively back; apart from Phileas she was the most combat-effective of them all. "If we keep our voices down, we should be safe enough here at least until dawn."

The rooms were at least dry, which was by no means guaranteed in a Paris winter, but they'd been unheated long enough to be nearly as chilly as the streets outside. Rebecca wrapped the fireman's blanket around herself again. The whole group crowded together for warmth.

"We can't just hide in here," Jules said. "You said, six days until you can call for help from your Secret Service."

"Everyone getting a little hungry by and by," Passepartout agreed.

"We aren't going to wait for help," Fogg said. "I should very much like a private word with Monsieur Cavois. But I'm not going to flail around in the dark looking for him while we all get shorter on sleep." He glanced across at the older novelist. "I'm sorry you've been involved in this, Dumas. I'd send you somewhere else if I thought we could get you there safely."

The big man bowed his head with the grace of one of his own musketeers. "These things will occur from time to time; there's no point in worrying overmuch about it. Frankly this is the kind of night's sleep I expected to have, if neither you nor your enemy had intervened." He patted his coat pocket, indicating an empty wallet inside.

"I don't understand why Cavois would seek out a quarrel now in particular," Rebecca said. "It's been six months or more since we crossed swords. Has it taken him this long to clear his social calendar? For that matter, why should he pursue a grudge at all? We can't be the only ones who ever thwarted one of his plans."

"Taking things very personally, yes." Passepartout's mode of expression in English was never subtle; now every syllable was heavy with conscious irony. The manservant was staring hard at Phileas Fogg. "Master ..."

Jules, who was less than favorably disposed toward his English friend at the moment, sprang on the half-formed clue. "Fogg, is there something you aren't telling us?"

Phileas looked embarrassed, but there was nothing humorous in the situation. His nerves were stretched dangerously tight. Rebecca raised an inquiring eyebrow but otherwise did nothing to increase the pressure on her cousin. "Very well." Fogg made a visible effort to keep control of his temper. "I suppose it is relevant. At the conclusion of our previous encounter, and at his instigation, Cavois and I fought a duel."

Rebecca's own inner tension increased a notch. She'd been aware that Phileas' insistence on "handling" the problem of Cavois could encompass such an outcome. What she couldn't imagine was a duel taking place, under the circumstances, that left both men alive. "Go on," she said in as neutral a voice as she could manage.

"A duel of Russian roulette." Phileas was not looking at her.

"That's insane!" Jules burst out. "Fighting like animals is bad enough, but playing at suicide ..."

Fogg's eyes came up, ice cold. The glitter of fear-fed anger stopped Jules' oration in its tracks. "No one asked your advice."

Rebecca's own discretion was at an end. She'd seen Phileas at the gaming table more times than she could count. She could visualize exactly how he'd look gambling with his life. His long fingers rock-steady on the gun, his eyes never blinking as he pressed the muzzle to the side of his head. "When I agreed to let you deal with Cavois, I expected you to do something marginally sensible," she snarled. A breath of difference, a roll of fate's dice, and he could have been gone. Phileas would have left her like that, left her alone to pick up the pieces without knowing where or why he'd died. Without seeing him even to say goodbye, unless she found his broken body... "How could you?" Her voice was less steady than Rebecca would have liked.

Phileas' eyes were dark, in tune with her pain, but he met hers firmly now. "I did it..."

She reared back with the iron bar. "Say _for you_ and I'll bash your head in."

"Please, is not to be fighting each other!" Passepartout flung himself between them, waving his hands in wild conciliatory gestures. "However bad could might be ... _point_ is no one dying at all. Passepartout saw it, heard it. Monsieur Cavois being too afraid to go on. Dropping the gun when it came to his turn ... but master let him live, shot into the wall. Thinking fight is not about British codes or Prussian spies any more."

"That would be a reason to hate." Dumas nodded soberly. "Shown up as a coward in his own eyes, and then compelled to accept the sparing of his life as a gesture of contempt. I can see it's a kind of mercy, not to take the advantage, but I think a very dangerous kind."

"You could have a point." Fogg's voice had quieted, anger replaced by a deep weariness. He seemed diminished, shrunken in on himself in the aftermath of Rebecca's wrath. "Unfortunately it's a bit after the fact. If our friend had it in mind to change history, perhaps he should have gone back and started then. Now ... I suggest we leave matters where they are for the moment. It's getting too damned late at night to scream at each other."

There was a general murmur of agreement. Too many raw edges had been exposed; there seemed no safe way for anyone to speak to one another. They milled around and tried to make the best of their Spartan refuge without actually addressing one another in complete sentences. The smallest room seemed marginally less cold than the other two. Rebecca refused to let it be designated 'her' room for the splendor of ladylike solitude. The only piece of furniture of any size in the place was a wooden bench; to win on having the others in the room with her, she had to give in gracefully about having the bench as her bed. She was grateful to be up out of the dust, and to keep the only blanket, although she suspected the four men huddling together like puppies in a basket would actually sleep warmer.

The wooden bench was about as yielding as granite. Rebecca reminded herself firmly that she was one of Her Majesty's finest, able to face any adversity with flair. It was hard to convince herself at the moment. The life Rebecca had forged for herself gave her indispensable freedom, but at a cost. Grief and rage and frustration boiled in her stomach now. A man in the same emotional state could drink and curse and hit things for relief. A woman -- an ordinary woman -- could weep aloud on the shoulder of a friend or lover. Rebecca, with a foot in each world, could do neither without compromising herself. In the near-privacy of the darkened room, she let her guard down a little. Her eyes filled with tears, her fists clenched and drove the nails painfully into her palms.

Damn her flinch reaction. If she'd let go just a little more she could have been drowsing in Phileas' arms right now, hearing his heartbeat and knowing even in sleep that he was contented and safe. They'd have been warmer, too. _Much too warm; making love wouldn't have stopped Cavois setting the house on fire._ The cynical, agent side of her was right, but that didn't mean she couldn't have done the same thing another night. Any night, or every night. _No_. She'd been right all those years to keep him at a distance, if she truly intended to retain her freedom of action. Even with the risks, even with her fears of losing her independence, it was going to be very hard to keep her hands off Phileas after those initial caresses. _I can still have him._

She could have him, yes. The handsome face and form, the devoted heart ... and the shadowed soul. Rebecca could secure his affections past any interference by other women, she thought, but Death was a mistress she couldn't compete with. His willingness to die for her, or for lack of her, lost much of its value when he was equally willing to die for a fit of pique or for nothing at all. She could imagine him casting it in Shakespearean terms: who steals my life, steals trash.

Phileas thought she could save him. As flattering as the idea was, it was also terrifying. Because he was wrong. Rebecca's own strength or courage or willpower, though she put a due value on them, were irrelevant. No one could drag another person into the light against his will. Rebecca could wish him happy and secure and at peace with her whole heart, but there was no way she could feel those feelings _for_ him. The burden he meant to lay on her shoulders was past any human being's ability to bear. That didn't stop her wanting to try, both out of love and out of her own inability to resist a challenge. If she did try -- and she probably would -- if she did fail -- and she certainly would -- it wouldn't stop her blaming herself for her failure.

Whether he would blame her, or would insist on pretending she'd succeeded, was impossible to tell until the actual event. Rebecca only knew that it was impossible to leave him, whether they became lovers or not. She couldn't remember ever making that decision consciously. It was simply something that had grown inside her a day at a time. The older boy home from boarding school who'd held her hand at her mother's funeral, the young agent who'd trained her when no one else would, the shattered man whose cold, unmoving hand she'd held in turn when they buried his brother ... Phileas was hers, like the breath in her lungs. No failure or fit of bad temper or even betrayal could change that. Separating herself from him would be as maiming as hacking off her own arm. If remaining near him carried its burden of pain ... she hadn't had any other plans, anyway.

\-----

Rebecca was asleep enough to be completely, bonelessly relaxed and awake enough to enjoy the experience. It was like swimming underwater. Wakefulness was out there, above the surface, but she didn't have to return to it unless she chose. She knew where she was, and why, but it didn't seem to need worrying about. Time had passed. Something had half-wakened her out of true sleep; slow introspection developed into the conclusion that the something was a sound. She listened to it for a while before her dozing brain processed the sound into a voice, then two voices. They were whispering, trying not to disturb anyone, but the tone was acid. Rebecca let herself float a little closer to the surface to hear better.

"I'm just saying that what's best for _her_ is what counts." A young, self-righteous voice, strained with the effort of holding to a whisper. Jules.

"Agreed. A matter which Rebecca is superbly qualified to decide on and act on for herself." Phileas was holding his voice down better. Rebecca could hear the weary, frayed edges but she doubted anyone else would have. "I suggest respecting that."

"I ..." The sentence started too loud; Jules stopped and went back to the faintest whisper. "I do respect her."

"Very wise." Phileas' voice changed, control abandoned for the candor of complete exhaustion. "Verne, do you have any illusions that you can make Rebecca do something she doesn't want to do? Or refrain from something she does? I assure you I haven't, and I've known her all her life. It's no good complaining to _me_ about this."

A snort of disbelief. "I'm sure you're so helpless."

"Yes."

Rebecca had never heard such a complete abandonment of pretense from Phileas, not in the depths of grief or anger or alcohol. She wanted to reach out to him, to comfort him, but she had no right. He hadn't intended her to hear. Phileas was going on, the raw resignation a little masked now. "At any rate, I think you're overestimating the significance of what you saw."

Jules, stung in his pride, misunderstood words and tone alike. "You mean I never had a chance with her no matter what, because I'm younger?"

"Call it that, if you like." Phileas' words were coated again in protective ice. He shifted on the floor. Rebecca risked half-opening an eye; he'd turned his back on Jules, ending the conversation. The younger man, his face set in a snarl, turned away as well. Rebecca let her eyes fall closed. It was a long time before she returned to sleep.

\-----

Rebecca woke again to sunlight in her eyes and a stiff, sore back. She was alone in the small room. She sat up on the wooden bench. Quiet voices beyond the door, familiar ones, told her she was neither abandoned nor, probably, in danger. She took her metal bar along in any case when she followed the sound. Jules and Dumas were near the windows in the front room, looking down on the street and conversing softly in French.

"Bonjour," Rebecca put in.

"Good morning." Jules looked positively guilty. He'd flinched a bit at the sight of her. Rebecca didn't think he knew she'd overheard his jealous outburst in the night; this looked like something different. Rebecca suddenly knew what. She turned around, a full circle, in an elaborate show of looking into every corner of the empty room. "Where is Phileas?" Her mild tone had razor-edged steel just below the surface.

Jules looked panicky. "He ..."

"Mr. Fogg and his manservant went out at dawn," Dumas put in with more composure. "There's neither food nor water here, still less information about what's going on in the outside world. Someone had to go."

Rebecca fought down a twinge of panic of her own. _At least Passepartout is sensible. He can keep him out of trouble._ But Passepartout had been with Phileas the night he faced Cavois and put a gun to his own head. "Whose idea was it for my cousin to take his valet with him?"

Jules knew the Englishman well enough to understand the intent of Rebecca's question. "It was Passepartout's. Fogg was planning to go alone until he insisted."

 _And he didn't have the nerve to face me._ Rebecca shivered.

"Surely he won't seek out trouble," Dumas reassured her. "He's not armed, for a start. He left this for you." Dumas held out the two-shot derringer. The gun looked like a toy in his big hand.

From the age of seven, Rebecca had trained herself and been trained by her guardian to respond coolly to fear or danger. Nothing less, she thought, could have kept her hand steady now as she took the gun from the novelist.

She felt a wild impulse to empty it into the ceiling, or even toward her own head. _One suicidal Fogg is quite enough._ It was harder still holding back the urge to turn and flay Jules alive. By his eyes, the young man seemed to know that. _You KNOW him, damn you. You should have known better._ "A bit of a misinterpretation, I fear." Rebecca kept her voice as impersonal as she could. "With us out of danger, he can take whatever steps he considers necessary to win. If Cavois kills him, and then loses interest in attacking the rest of us ... Phileas would call that winning."

"God." Jules understood now, yes. "Rebecca, I'm sorry. He was so calm, and he made the whole idea sound so sensible. It just never occurred to me."

 _Didn't it? I can think of one reason you'd want Phileas out of your path._ But that was too cruel to say even if Rebecca had believed it. "Where would he go, Jules? Think. Where could he find Cavois?"

"I don't know. He never said anything at all about it." Jules looked thoughtful. "Wherever they fought the duel?"

The sensible remark made Rebecca feel a little steadier. Verne's brains could be a tremendous asset in times of trouble, though his impulsive immaturity sometimes made it hard to remember that. "I believe that did happen here in Paris," Rebecca said. "Somewhere. I should have gotten the information out of Passepartout while I had the chance." Rebecca pocketed the small pistol and moved toward the door.

"Mam'selle." Dumas moved to intercept her, softening the interference with hands spread in a gesture of harmlessness. "It's futile to search at random in an entire city. Besides ... your safety is of the greatest importance. Mr. Fogg surely left us behind so that we could protect you."

A small, slightly evil smile crossed Rebecca's face. "Two gentlemen to guard a helpless lady, you mean?" she said softly. _Nothing too rough_. Rebecca took the older man's hand, patting it in gratitude for his chivalry. Then her grip turned suddenly steely. A pull, a shift of weight and Dumas' arm was twisted behind him to the breaking point. Rebecca showed him the derringer, abruptly back in her other hand with its muzzle pointed safely at the ceiling. "Or one operational field agent to guard two civilians. I'm quite fond of you, Alexandre, but some situations call for a clear chain of command."

Jules seemed torn between shock and laughter; he knew her. "Rebecca, please."

"My lady, I need that arm to write with," Dumas said, a little pained. "Or to drink with at the very least. I yield."

"I knew we could work together." Rebecca let go; the gun quietly disappeared. "Where were we, Jules? The dueling ground, if we knew where it was. What about the boarding house? Cavois was there last night. He might visit it again. Though he couldn't hope to pick up our trail there, not after this many hours."

"But it's a reasonable place to find Fogg -- if he knows Fogg's willing to be found. There, or the tavern." Verne looked worried.

Rebecca thought of a duel with one gun and one bullet being coldly passed back and forth. "I suspect they understand each other very well. That's it, then. When did Phileas leave?"

Jules had saved his watch from last night's fire. "Less than an hour ago."

"I'd say we still have a chance." An infinitely better chance than waiting here until Passepartout came back alone -- or until it became clear that no one would ever come back. Rebecca looked around the room for loose belongings and found very few. "If we leave now."


	5. ... Pro Patria Mori (... to lay down your life for your country)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Misplaced in time, broke in Paris, and pursued by Cavois, Phileas and friends struggle to regain control of their destinies.

The shabby streets on the path back to the burned lodging house were far livelier by day than by night. Rebecca paused on one crowded corner, where an Italian was selling used clothes from a wheelbarrow. She bought a pair of boy's shoes for herself with a little of the money Phileas had saved from the fire. Jules was pressing on ahead impatiently; Alexandre Dumas waited for her as she tied the laces tight. "It may be, mam'selle, that the situation is not as dangerous as you fear," Dumas suggested. "Your Mr. Fogg is not a man to shrink from risk, no. But to deliberately sacrifice himself ... he has, I think, more to live for than that."

Rebecca's mouth twisted into a bitter line. One flash of half-nudity, and people spun the most extravagant stories for themselves. "You're sure?"

"Naturally, I assumed ..." Dumas really looked at her this time. "I assume too much, I think. No intent to offend, dear lady."

Rebecca looked up at him, smiling wearily. She did like Dumas. His lumbering flirtation was laced with enough self-directed humor that it was impossible to get angry at him. He was a man of the world, and unlike Jules had no personal reasons to be thin-skinned. There was probably no one in this time who would make a better confidante. _Or any time ... who in the world can I talk frankly to except Phileas?_ "No offense taken, Alexandre." She gave one shoelace a final tug and got to her feet. Jules was barely visible as a bobbing head in the crowd. She began to move, keeping the young author in sight. "It wasn't for want of trying. I think I'm losing my charm."

Alexandre shook his head. "This will happen -- the very day that the moon falls into the sea. I would not claim perfect understanding, but so much is certain. The man adores you, yes?"

"People say that as if it solves everything." Rebecca looked off into the distance. "How much do you know about us, Alexandre?"

He shrugged. "More perhaps than you think. Young Jules and I have corresponded better since our last meeting in Paris. He is very eloquent on the subject of his friends." Dumas smiled, gentle mockery. "One senses a certain amount of hero-worship for both of you. Or more than hero-worship ... valor and beauty are a potent combination in the eyes of an idealist. I don't think it was accidental that he cast you as Joan of Arc in one of his plays."

"Her story didn't end well," Rebecca said. "I'd prefer a little more optimistic model to shape my life after."

"Indeed." Dumas looked searchingly at her. "I was not surprised, you know, to see you together last night. When I first met you and Fogg, I had assumed you to be long-established lovers."

Rebecca kept her expression under control. She'd had the question before. She had a range of answers ready based on how much truth the questioner deserved. All of it, this time, or there was no point in talking to Dumas. "Not lovers; partners. We work together, we fight together ..."

"But not sleep. I see."

"It's complicated."

"Yes." The old author was still watching her. "Some time after, Jules wrote to me of an American lady your Fogg was interested in, a lady who died. I confess that did confuse me."

"Saratoga Browne." It had been easier for Rebecca to support Phileas' _tendresse_ before she realized he'd actually wanted to marry the total stranger. The point had been academic by then. Something like relief at the widow's death, and guilt for her own relief, had complicated Rebecca's emotions for a long time. "She was a good woman, by her own customs," Rebecca conceded. "She was certainly very much attached to Phileas. I ... suppose she might have been good for him. There was no time to tell, really. We all knew her less than four days."

Dumas was too perceptive. "I had seen myself how your friend glowers when any man pays you a compliment. Jealousy on your side, however, I had not seen."

Rebecca's chin came up; a slur on her integrity was not to be tolerated. "I've worked very hard to keep him at arm's length. How could I be jealous?"

"If you mean to persuade me that the human heart is rational, mademoiselle, I must beg to be excused."

The older man's eyes were sympathetic. Rebecca smiled back helplessly at her own folly. "I don't know what to do, Alexandre. I only want him to live -- why does that have to be so difficult?"

"I would say, because that is not what your Mr. Fogg wants for himself. At the least, not to live without a purpose."

They moved another several yards through the crowd, following Jules. Speaking English in the presence of indifferent Parisians was almost like full privacy. "He used to live for his work," Rebecca said. "Or I thought he did. He won't even consider taking that back now. So I thought I could make a difference ..."

"And he took your concern for pity."

Rebecca stopped dead. "How did you know?"

Dumas smiled fondly at her. "Dear lady, I _am_ a poet."

\-----

Fogg knew plenty of men of his own social class who complained about tyrannical valets. Normally the complainer was a feather-head with a trust fund whose austere manservant disapproved of collars below a certain height or soft-breasted shirts with evening wear. He'd never had that kind of difference of opinion with Passepartout, but the current battle of wills was making up lost ground. Not that the French valet had attempted any direct opposition to Fogg's tactical planning. Instead he was silently and implacably following Fogg wherever he went. Under normal circumstances, that would have been admirable obedience.

They were moving through the Left Bank at a slight angle to the Seine, toward an abandoned stone building Fogg had visited once before. "Any number of places to get food, newspapers," Passepartout remarked, falsely cheerful. "Only leaving a few minutes, you said ... Miss Rebecca will worry, not back before she wakes up."

Fogg's right hand, down by his side, formed a fist without his willing it. The tale he'd spun for Dumas and Verne in their temporary lair had been a tissue of lies, and Passepartout knew it. Dragging Rebecca's name into the matter was outright vicious. Phileas never expected to see her again.

Rebecca slept as lightly as he did. Phileas hadn't dared touch her to say goodbye. But he'd watched her sleep, an image to carry with him on what remained of his travels. Whatever his "contingent" future self had intended by lending them the time machine had failed. He wouldn't now become that future Fogg. But otherwise, Phileas had no complaints. Saving Dumas' life was a worthy goal. More, fighting Cavois alone would make Rebecca safer, or completely safe. At worst, if Fogg were killed, Cavois would have no motive to torment the others without Fogg as a witness. Rebecca would mourn him. She would probably hate his memory for leaving her, Phileas hadn't deceived himself about that. But she would be alive and well and able to defend herself against further attacks by Cavois. If any. Fogg felt confident he could at least damage the renegade Frenchman in any final encounter, perhaps make him share his death. _Who knows, I might even survive._ Fogg had no inherent objection to the idea. Which was not the same as being attached to it. Hoping too much was a dangerous weakness that might disrupt his concentration.

Passepartout's presence was the one flaw in the plan. The valet had become more friend than servant after all their shared adventures. His loyalty by now was heartfelt, not an employee's cold duty, and he knew Fogg well enough to all but read his mind. All those factors were comforting under normal circumstances, but dangerously obstructive now. Fogg needed him gone. Worse, Passepartout at least suspected that fact.

They were passing through a better neighborhood now, full of small shops and cafes. "I'm hungry," Fogg said. "Get some rolls at that bakery."

Passepartout looked back at his employer with a wide-eyed, innocent expression that would have been invaluable to an agent. "I will," he said. "Not to lose sight in the crowd, though -- realizing now where we're going. Place where the man Cavois was last time. Half of life living in Paris -- master slipping away, can reach it before you do."

Damn him anyway. The valet would be a hindrance or worse. He could be hurt. He could be captured alive and tortured into revealing Rebecca's hiding place. He could be killed. He probably would, if he saw Fogg in danger and rushed to his assistance. Fogg would have no freedom of action with Passepartout trailing along. He should have argued more vigorously against Passepartout's company back at the empty suite of rooms, but he'd feared that any commotion would waken Rebecca. He only saw two possible choices now.

"Go." He gave the single word a cutting edge. Centuries of ancestral privilege behind it, and an adult lifetime giving orders in the Service. "If you aren't out of sight in thirty seconds, you are out of my employ."

Passepartout flinched but held his ground. "If stopping being your manservant, making free as the air," he said shakily. "Free to do any liking, yes? And not liking that you go to danger alone." He stared back in nervous defiance.

One option down. Fogg's empty stomach gave a queasy roll. Passepartout was agile and strong. Phileas Fogg had seen him handle himself in a fight with remarkable skill. It would be no contest -- Fogg had killed men before with nothing but his hands -- but it would take more than a light tap. The only way to incapacitate the valet long enough to keep him out of harm's way would be to hurt him, probably badly.

Fogg gathered his strength to strike. Passepartout knew him entirely too well, yes, because that thought had come across too. The Frenchman was still staring back, chin elevated a little. Hands down. The passivity of the pose was itself a form of defiance. Fogg could do anything he chose, but he'd have to do it looking into the eyes of a man who was making no attempt to defend himself.

He couldn't. Fogg wasn't accustomed to thinking of himself as someone overly crippled by moral scruples, but he'd run into one now hard enough to leave bruises. It was the wrong decision, rationally. Both of them, or all of them, could die before sunset for his squeamishness. But he couldn't lash out at a friend, not in cold blood. He let the tension go from his muscles. He saw Passepartout recognize the change. "We go back to the others, Master," Passepartout said quietly. "Find another plan. Not doing this ..."

"No." Fogg straightened a little. "Help or hinder, as you like, but Cavois must be dealt with.

Passepartout looked unhappy, but he nodded. "I follow; is all I ask. So long as not asking to _not_ follow."

The conditional surrender was the best he'd get, Fogg knew. "Then try to make yourself useful. We may not have much time."

\-------

The last time they'd come to the disused building it had been midnight-dark outside the range of a few lamps. Now, in daylight, there proved to be enough broken-paned windows and missing roof tiles to provide adequate light. Fogg went without hesitation to the room where the suicidal duel had taken place. The wide wooden table was there, though the brass lamps once hanging above it had gone. Months of dust lay over everything. Passepartout fingered a slanting, lead-lined hole in the wall near the door. The only bullet fired in the entire duel had gone there; Fogg's, when he deliberately spared Cavois' life. "Nobody," the valet said. "Nobody even been here since that night."

"Look again. The table's untouched, yes, but not the dust on the floor." Fogg sounded abstracted. Scuff marks on the worn flagstones; too indistinct to merit the name footprints, but still a distinct trail. Fogg's chair, the farthest from the door, had been left half pulled out from the table at the end of the evening. Fogg hadn't been imperturbable then, Passepartout recalled. He'd been so shaken with the nearness of death and the relief of survival that he'd been as giddy as a drunk for hours afterward. The chair to all appearances hadn't been moved a millimeter since that night, but a neat white envelope rested on it now. Passepartout glimpsed the words "Monsieur Fogg" penned on the outside before the Englishman swept it up.

"Is to be naming a different place and time to fight?" Passepartout believed as firmly as his master did that the conflict could end only with either Fogg or Cavois dead.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Fogg refolded the page with a snap. The valet caught only a blurred glimpse of a few words in black ink. "But it's a message drop. _Poste restante_ at the post office on Rue Sante Rochelle, in the Latin Quarter. Why can't the wretch just send a straightforward challenge?" Fogg's eyes went introspective again. "Unless he has something else to say, and wants to make sure of a goodly delay in saying it ... God, I'm a fool. Back to the flat, Passepartout. We should never have divided the group."

Passepartout had to sidestep quickly or be run down; Fogg was out the door, seeking the exit to the building. The valet scurried to catch up. "Master, if the Cavois is wanting killing you why not send for a duel now?"

"He doesn't fancy the odds," Fogg bit out over his shoulder. "He wants to set the terms to suit himself -- and that means finding a lever to use against me."

\-------

Rebecca Fogg and her two companions had partially satisfied their hunger with bread and cheese from a street vendor on their way back to last night's boarding house. The fire had done its work thoroughly. The fire brigade had managed to save the buildings on either side, but the boarding house itself was a charred shell. "There's no sign of your Mr. Fogg, or of his enemy," Dumas remarked. "I think we would see them." The collective Parisian appetite for spectacle was quickly jaded. Only a few passersby were viewing the building or poking idly in the ashes.

Jules' jaw was set. Not far past twenty, he often looked almost childlike in his moments of enthusiasm. He was fully adult at the moment, grim and a little pale. "The concierge across the street said two people died in the fire," he said. "A man asleep on the floor below our rooms, and the landlord's little granddaughter. Because of us. Because we happened to check in here instead of somewhere else." He looked sick.

Rebecca laid a hand on her friend's arm. "Not because of us," she said quietly. "Because of Cavois. Keep that very clear in your mind. And I promise you that there will be an accounting for this along with his other crimes."

Jules Verne did not look comforted. "I know these things happen. I do. But they were willing to bend time to save Alexandre." A guilty glance at Dumas. "I am glad you're alive; I'd have done anything. But why not those people, too?

"I don't know." Rebecca had the uncomfortable feeling that she herself, in some future incarnation, was part of 'they.' "We don't know enough about how time travel works. Maybe it wasn't physically possible."

"We are men, not gods," Dumas said. "The lady is quite correct. Your tender heart does you credit, Jules -- but our responsibility now is to prevent it from happening again."

Rebecca felt ... she never knew how to describe it, a sensation as fleeting as wind brushing her skin. She looked up, in what she knew to be the right direction. Phileas came around a corner a second later, Passepartout scurrying behind him. She breathed easier, seeing him alive and well, and knew he'd done the same for her. Relief held center stage only an instant before anger demanded its turn. "So. The prodigal cousin," she said in a light, knife-edged voice as the other two drew near.

Her chill reception had taken Fogg off balance. "You weren't at the empty house when we went back. I was worried."

"Indeed? I seem to remember being in much the same state myself earlier this morning." Rebecca didn't owe him any time to recover. "How goes the vendetta, then? Is Monsieur Cavois' head on a pike somewhere, checked in the cloakroom of your club perhaps?"

"We haven't seen him. He wasn't at the ... place we fought before." Fogg wouldn't give her the location even now; he'd always played his cards close. Bastard.

"Finding clue, though," Passepartout supplied cheerfully. "Message, is how to get notes from Cavois picked up at a certain post office. It is playing rat and mice."

"I did think I smelt something in the rodent line," Rebecca said breezily. Dumas was beaming indulgently at both of them. Rebecca resolved to cut his throat if the words "lovers' quarrel" passed his lips. "Shall we stand around on the street all day bellowing our private business, or would you prefer finding somewhere more discreet? This is losing its charm."

"Rebecca." She felt Jules' hand on her sleeve.

"Not now." She kept her eyes fixed on her cousin. "Leaving us behind ... if you have any doubts of my professional qualifications, dear Phileas, it's well past time you spelled them out. Do you consider me a liability, then?"

"That's not the point, and you know it," Fogg retorted, his own voice growing sharper. "That maniac ..."

Jules grabbed Rebecca's shoulders from behind. With surprise on his side, his wiry strength was more than enough to turn her ninety degrees. "You mean _that_ one?" He let go with one hand, and pointed.

The young author was right. Cavois stood some thirty yards away, at the street corner, regarding them all with the cold dignity of a snake. He was still dressed in evening clothes. When he was sure he'd been seen he turned in an elegant swirl of cloak and disappeared behind a building.

"Right." Fogg suddenly launched himself toward the distant figure, running full tilt.

Rebecca had her steel rod up one sleeve; she let it drop and pressed it into Alexandre Dumas' hand. "Stay here." She caught her skirt up in one hand and ran after Phileas.

She expected to find Phileas not far around the corner already in the process of throttling the older man. Rebecca had pretty well made up her mind to let him. Instead she saw Cavois disappearing into the distance with an impressive turn of speed. Phileas was pounding along behind with long-limbed athletic grace, but had yet to close the distance. Rebecca spared a half-second's glance and saw Passepartout following close behind her. Since the two authors were keeping out of harm's way for once, she decided not to criticize. "Hurry," she breathed to the valet. They both managed a little more speed.

\-----

"They'll be fine," Jules Verne said. "They don't need any more help." Not that it was fair leaving him behind. He was seething with anger inwardly. He'd helped the Foggs, really helped, in situations more dangerous than this. But he could never catch up now anyway, so he might as well put the best face on the matter.

"I understood that you'd never set eyes on this Cavois, even last night at the fire," Dumas said.

"I haven't, exactly. But the Secret Service circulated sketches and descriptions after he tried to kill Rebecca last summer. I saw those." There was more to it. Even at a distance, Jules hadn't doubted for an instant who he was seeing. He didn't want to probe that feeling too deeply. It always irritated him when Fogg took a turn for the mystic; Jules Verne didn't want to imitate the man. "If they catch him at all, they'll have him quickly." He attempted a smile. "Maybe we can sleep in our own beds tonight."

Dumas shrugged. "You forget -- I haven't any."

"Come stay with me, then. We'll sneak you past my landlady. Or you could visit your son, like you'd planned."

"It was much easier being a noted author when there was some money attached to the role," Dumas said. "Take my advice, cher Verne; look to your finances as well as your laurels when your books and plays begin to sell."

"I don't think I'm at any immediate risk," Jules laughed.

A medium-sized carriage and pair pulled up to the curb beside them. "Er, _parlais-vous anglais s'il vous plaît?_ " the man on the box mumbled in an embarrassed and wholly British voice.

Jules had naturally returned to his native tongue in talking to Dumas. Now he grinned and took pity on the poor tourist. "Yes, we speak English. What can we do for you?"

"Thank God for that," the man said. He was well dressed from coat to wide-brimmed hat. His voice was as aristocratic as it was English. He might have gone to the same elite schools and universities as Phileas Fogg. "I'm lost. I doubt there's a straight street in the whole beastly city."

"There aren't many in this quarter, I have to admit." Jules stepped closer to the vehicle. "What are you looking for?"

\------

Rebecca was breathing hard but grimly determined not to lose her quarry. Passepartout, beside her, was breathing like a railway engine. Phileas, the fastest of them, was closing on Cavois. In fact, the assassin seemed to be purposely slowing down a little, as if taunting them. _He'll regret that_. Speeding up further was out of the question. Rebecca made it a point to get regular vigorous exercise, but not this kind. She settled for not losing sight of the two taller men.

Cavois was approaching another intersection, this one a larger cross street with ample traffic both horse-drawn and on foot. A harder glitter appeared in Rebecca's eyes. He'd have to turn or slow down, or both, to avoid being run over.

Cavois was certainly slowing down now. Rebecca read triumph in Phileas' posture, saw him gather himself for a final burst of speed. Then Cavois reached the busy street. He came to a complete stop on the corner, inches from the passing vehicles. Phileas Fogg sprang toward the man -- just as Cavois caught the frame of a passing cab and leaped lightly onto the running board. The driver instantly whipped up his horse. The cab, and Cavois, shot out of reach. Fogg turned the leap into a roll and landed painfully hard on the cobblestones just short of the stream of traffic.

He was on his feet again when Rebecca and Passepartout reached him. Rebecca half expected an eloquent, multilingual stream of profanity. Instead Fogg was stony calm, staring after the vehicle with hard eyes. "We can trace the cab number," Rebecca offered, trying to catch her breath.

"No." Fogg brushed street dirt off his clothes. "No point. If I make one more blunder, I'd like you to shoot me for the common good. Cavois had help. Therefore, he could have had more help. And our friends ..."

Rebecca turned back toward the burned lodging house. "God in Heaven."

Passepartout leaned forward, bracing his hands on his knees, and coughed. "Cannot run any more," he gasped.

"We'll walk," Fogg said tonelessly. "I'm afraid there's no point in running."

There was a crowd gathering again in front of the gutted lodging house. Fogg pressed through it with a ruthless use of elbows, the other two trailing behind him. Alexandre Dumas lay flat on the cobblestones. Rebecca's steel rod was clutched in his fist. There was a trace of blood on it -- the old bear had lost none of his fighting instincts -- but he'd gained only a moral victory. The splashes of blood on the stone, too much blood, came mostly from an open gash on his forehead.

He stirred faintly when Rebecca bent over him. "Dear lady. My fault. Didn't think ..."

"Hush." Rebecca didn't dare shift the big man's head into her lap. She tore a piece from her skirts and pressed it against the open wound. The blood-sticky surface under her fingers seemed solid, at least. "They didn't break your skull. It must be bone clear through."

Dumas started to smile at the joke, and winced. He was deathly pale. "Jules."

Phileas Fogg crouched beside Rebecca. He didn't look around the crowd. He didn't need to; the young man would never leave a friend bleeding on the ground. "Verne is gone. They've taken him."

Tears trickled from Dumas' eyes. "I should have known ..."

Rebecca felt like crying herself, from weariness and frustration and shock. Phileas looked in little better condition, but there was a hard line around his mouth. "We'll find Verne and bring him back," he said. "We will."


	6. Fiat Lux (let there be light)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Jules helpless in the hands of Cavois and Dumas badly injured, the Foggs try to regroup tactically and emotionally before somebody dies.

Phileas Fogg lied like a trooper -- invoking his own personal fortune, the British ambassador, secret government missions and the honor of French literature -- to secure a private room for Dumas in the best hospital in Paris. Perhaps, Rebecca thought, he was gambling that their few days in intertemporal limbo would have ended by the time the various authorities had a chance to compare notes. Perhaps he didn't care any more.

The doctors stitched and bandaged the gash in Dumas' forehead. They put the old author to bed. When Phileas questioned the adequacy of the treatment in bitter, fluent French they only shook their heads and left patient and visitors alone. Fogg, in one of his periodic fits of non-chivalry, had commandeered the most comfortable chair in the hospital room. Rebecca let the issue pass, and took the second best chair for herself. There was a third but Passepartout remained standing, shifting from foot to foot with nervous energy. Fogg broke his reverie long enough to demand the latest copy of as many newspapers as Passepartout could find. The valet disappeared, relieved at having some definite task to accomplish. Fogg steepled his hands in front of him, elbows on the arms of the chair, and stared with great concentration at nothing. He avoided looking at Rebecca, at the sleeping Dumas, the view from the window. When the newspapers came he raised one like a shield, hiding his face. Rebecca smiled tense gratitude at Passepartout and nodded toward the last chair. The valet, too, settled in to wait.

Rebecca knew her cousin's reading speed. He had truly read a few columns toward the back of the paper, but for the most part he simply kept one page or another held up to hide his expression. It would have been tempting to slice it open with a throwing knife, if she'd had one. Under the circumstances, she chose to wait him out. It was forty-five minutes by the clock before Phileas spoke again. "Damned negligent doctors."

"Giving nature time to work is the only sensible treatment," Rebecca said. "As well you know. If they'd suggested an operation or anything of the kind, you'd be ranting just as loudly about leeches and medieval torture chambers."

Fogg's newspaper shifted. "It shouldn't have happened. Your friend told me in words of one syllable -- watch over Verne. When the crucial moment came, I forgot the warning."

Rebecca made a mental note that the future Phileas Fogg was firmly 'her friend' in the current one's lexicon, not any part of himself. "So did I," Rebecca said quietly. "So did Passepartout, for that matter; the warning was addressed to all three of us. I begin to believe that getting into trouble is Jules' nature. If there's blame to be rationed out we all deserve a share, including himself."

Phileas shook his head. "I should not have allowed it to happen." A hand gesture took in Dumas' unconscious state on top of everything else. "And now ..."

 _And now, God knows what they're doing to Jules Verne._ Rebecca could finish the sentence without difficulty. It was a fear they'd shared often enough since the young writer had fallen into their lives. "Jules will come out of this," she said more decisively than she felt. "He keeps his wits about him, and he's too valuable to mistreat."

"He's too valuable to the League of Darkness. He's too valuable to anyone else who wants the benefit of his inventions," Phileas retorted. "Cavois is no builder or conqueror. He merely wants you and me dead." One hand closed on the edge of the newspaper until the knuckles went white with helpless rage.

"Master," Passepartout put in. His voice was timid; any pretext could serve as a lightning rod for Fogg's anger in this mood. "Only thinking... Rue Sante Rochelle..."

"What about it?" Fogg snapped back.

"The post office." The valet looked more upset by Fogg's slowness to follow him than by the minor burst of wrath. "Surely meaning this, when Cavois saying will send message to be picked up. Maybe already message there now. Passepartout can get it."

Phileas' attention was turned inward again for one, two beats longer than the simple proposition should have required. Rebecca bit her lower lip. He must be closer to unraveling than she'd realized. "No." Fogg spoke quickly, making up for lost reaction time. "Not this quickly. In any case, if they named that location even as a message drop, they can lay a trap for us there. One of us going out alone is taking too great a risk."

 _That's why he hesitated; he needed a plausible lie._ Rebecca felt easier again, her knowledge of her cousin confirmed. "Even if that one is you," she said pointedly.

He understood her understanding. Fogg gave a sour half-smile and set down the newspaper to look Rebecca squarely in the eyes. "My word as a gentleman," he said softly. "I will not go to the post office in Rue Sante Rochelle without your knowledge to meet Cavois or to receive a message from him. Good enough?"

That at least wasn't his sort of lie. Rebecca was largely comforted, though she sensed a ghost of a loophole. "Nor from anyone else," she prompted. _We know Cavois has help ..._

Fogg repeated the codicil in a grim, weary voice. "I've made enough mistakes," he continued. "We can't afford even one more. That man," he gestured at Dumas, "risked his life for us and for Verne. The least we can do is find out if he's going to survive the experience. Waiting is the only safe move." From his expression, it tasted like salt and ashes. Phileas hated losing the initiative above all things. Rebecca patted his hand, attempting comfort.

\-----

Time passed. Nurses came, and made cursory examinations of Dumas, and left again. Passepartout seemed to manage the long wait the best, because he could always set himself to some minor task. Fogg had given the rest of the stack of morning newspapers the same cursory attention he'd given the first one. Passepartout tidied them out of the way when Fogg was finished. A coal fire warmed one end of the room. Passepartout kept it blazing brightly, and went out for more coals when the scuttle was empty. An hour or so later the valet brought them cups of tea without being asked. "Thank you, Passepartout," Rebecca said quietly. The liquid was horrible -- her first sip made her suspect the cheap tea leaves had been used once before -- but at least he was trying.

Phileas made a sour face too, but he steeled his courage and took a full swallow. "Thank you indeed." It was the soft, almost hoarse voice he used when he was too low-spirited or simply too tired to stand on his dignity. Is there any way ... do you think you might find us some food, Passepartout? It's probably against some hospital rule, but I don't think we should leave him."

Passepartout's wide, round face lit up. "Bringing you a feast. Gods shall be jealous." He disappeared again before Fogg could countermand the order.

Rebecca hid a smile of her own. The valet's devotion to her cousin always charmed her. Heaven knew that Phileas needed a keeper. She'd wondered from time to time why a man with Jean Passepartout's talents was content to remain a servant. His mechanical skills alone could make him his own fortune. Certainly Fogg paid him well, but hero-worship had to be a large component of the relationship. _Maybe Passepartout is like the rest of us, following Phil around out of a morbid curiosity to see what he'll do next._

Fogg had left his chair. He poured the vile cup of tea into a potted plant near the window. He leaned over the sickbed and touched Dumas' forehead, his long fingers avoiding the bandaged wounds. "He may be all right," Phileas said with real relief. "His color's good, and his breathing. I think he's only sleeping now, not comatose." He drew the blankets up a little further to keep the man warm. "I'm not sure I can tolerate losing anyone else at the moment."

He crossed to the open coal grate and stared into the flames. Rebecca remembered another cold, hopeless afternoon at Shillingworth Magna. She made a mental connection, and was angry that she hadn't realized it months ago. _Whenever Jules is in danger, you don't see Jules. Or not only Jules. You see Erasmus, trusting you and following you._ Fogg's brother had been several years older than Verne when he died. There was little resemblance, physical or emotional, between the two men. But that didn't matter when the voice of guilt spoke. Rebecca ached to go to him, to hold him as Phileas had done for her when she was a child. She held back. Her feelings now were not the simple ones of a child or a foster sister.

Phileas looked up, as if feeling her eyes on him. Rebecca felt her face flush instantly red. He saw it, or saw something. A ghost of a smile played at one corner of his mouth. "Tuppence for your thoughts."

Rebecca raised irony as an automatic shield. "I thought the going rate was a penny."

"Your thoughts are worth twice as much as anyone else's. At the very least." One of Phileas' hands was busy, taking a wad of scrap paper from one trouser pocket and flinging it on the fire. His eyes remained fixed on Rebecca.

She was never going to stop blushing at this rate. "Funny old world, isn't it?" she quoted the music-hall saying. "Still, you have to laugh." Rebecca caught up the top sheet of one of the refolded newspapers and hid behind it.

She couldn't see him now. That after all was the point of hiding her face. Rebecca heard him move. She feared _... wanted ..._ to see his hands twitch the paper aside and make her face him. But his quiet footsteps went back to his own chair.

She'd seen this coming. It wasn't as if she hadn't seen this coming. She'd known that there were more and subtler risks in going to Phileas' bed last night than mere pregnancy. She'd been more relieved than offended ( _far more,_ she repeated for the tingle in her stomach which didn't believe a word of it) when Phileas refused her. The rational response, just as he'd said, was to wait out this reaction until the emotional state between them returned to normal. She had underestimated the extent of her own lust, that was all. A lot of women felt this way about Phileas Fogg; it would pass. She'd seen it happen.

Phileas' looks and income and smooth public social graces had attracted a steady flow of feminine attention. Respectable and otherwise, women were drawn to him like moths to flame. He was discreet, but Rebecca had seen the dance often enough. She'd seen too how they left again, driven off by his secretive nature or his drinking or his sudden fits of temper and self-loathing. A few hadn't lived to leave him. His work, official or not, dragged him into acute danger at unpredictable intervals. Gently reared young ladies who followed him into such situations, or whom he found already embroiled in crisis, didn't always come out again however hard he tried to protect them.

The pattern had only grown worse since his brother's death. He seemed to launch himself into trysts now, whether matters of the heart or simply of appetite, with the despair of the foredoomed. The whirlwind romance with Saratoga Browne, even before its catastrophic end, had some of the clutching quality of a drowning man with one last chance at a life line. Its aftermath had brought him lower than Rebecca had ever seen him. He'd sought death before, but never with such fixed determination and never over a lost lover.

Her determination to leave well enough alone wavered. _Phileas can't go on like this._ Men who knew Phileas Fogg's public face, the methodical agent with the tastes of a bon vivant, saw him as hard and self-reliant and ruthless. Women who'd fallen in love with him dismissed the harsh surface as a defensive shell over a heart that was all too vulnerable. Rebecca seemed to be alone in the insight that both sides, the fragile lover and the cool-eyed killer, were genuine. People, including Fogg himself, had tried to find him peace by smothering one side or the other of his divided soul. Rebecca no longer believed that method could work. A dynamic balance between his two halves, sating the hungers for comfort and danger alike, seemed a fool's chance to provide him long-term stability. But Rebecca suspected that anything less offered no hope at all.

 _Or rather, you're sure that's what YOU need._ The accusing voice in her head sounded remarkably like her cousin's. _Writing the rules of the contest so that only you can win. What was that about your being different from all the others?_

It was true that her views on Phileas' Janus-faced personality were affected by her own divided nature. _But that doesn't mean I'm wrong_. On the contrary. Their shared upbringing and career made the parallel a trustworthy guide. She'd had her own brushes with friends or suitors who grasped one side of her personality and treated her as if that fragment was her whole soul.

If truth were told, Rebecca was probably further from the nebulous goal of inner peace than her cousin was. She could kill more easily than Phileas, and with fewer moral pangs afterward. In recent years she'd taken to rubbing men's noses in that aspect of herself, _Jules for instance, poor boy,_ when they seemed too enamored of her ladylike surface. If Phileas lived to be old, Rebecca could imagine him as an embittered and alcoholic roue -- or a gigolo, if his money ran out -- using women as superficial sources of comfort. But she could imagine herself little better, her energy turned inward and soured into a defensive viciousness as age narrowed her world.

 _He's not the only one who can't go on. We'll both come to the end of ourselves._ Rebecca had told herself that she couldn't afford to offer herself to Phileas. She'd feared that a failed romance between them would damage them both more deeply than anything else could. She'd begun to wonder, lately, if the results of doing nothing might be still worse. By training and temperament, any action however risky was easier for her than inaction. She had to try again; not a seduction, but honesty. There had to be peace between them if they expected to survive.

Rebecca set the newspaper on the floor by her chair. Phileas was still watching her. The hollow in the pit of her stomach felt like the first time she'd had to report a failed mission to her guardian. No delay would make it better, she knew. "I owe you an apology. That was pretty badly timed, wasn't it?"

Some men would have been confused. Phileas knew her very well. "Starting to make love in a burning building? It did lack something in the area of common sense."

"I don't mean the fire. I was afraid. After you told me, or rather the other one told me, that you didn't want to live ... I didn't see what else I could do."

Phileas looked somber. "If you're determined to have me outlive you, then no. Making me depend on you even more wasn't the best way to go about it." His voice dropped still lower. "I need you so terribly as it is. Not to ..." He looked away, and started again. "I just need you to be nearby. I need to see you and talk to you, so I know you're well." His eyes came up to hers; Rebecca shivered with the impact. "You don't have to do anything else, you know. I haven't earned anything more."

"Earned?" Rebecca felt sudden, cold anger like a stomach full of poison. Against herself, and Phileas, and Sir Boniface ... everything and everyone that had brought him to this state. "I'm not a queen handing out medals. What have you done that's so horrible you have to atone for it before you _earn_ any happiness?"

He shrugged, as if it were obvious. "You know the answer."

 _Him too._ She could have beaten her younger cousin to a pulp for what his death had done to Phileas. "You did not kill Erasmus. You didn't ask him to die. You didn't _let_ him die. The League wounded him, and he decided to take the quick way out. You were only a witness."

"I didn't stop him. I didn't stop them. I didn't do anything of use to anyone." Phileas looked up again, hollow-eyed. "I've been thinking about your friend. I suspect now that he wound up in entirely the wrong part of parallel time. Maybe he was from a world where Erasmus never died at all. At least, not like that. That's why he was so ... that's the difference. It's the only logical explanation."

Yes, Phileas definitely belonged on the list of people to beat senseless. But the urge to hold him, to comfort him was still stronger. _Can you imagine no healing of that wound?_ Rebecca made her voice stay level. "You keep saying 'My friend.'"

"Well, you did take to him."

 _Maybe I can beat him and then comfort him._ "To Phileas Fogg, you mean," Rebecca said with tooth-grinding patience. Her cousin looked back blankly, as if she were speaking gibberish.

Her self-control came unhinged. "Good God." Her voice soared far too loud for a sickroom. She levered herself suddenly from her chair and began to pace. "I've said it about ten times now -- 'he' is you." Phileas hadn't had a chance to rise with her; Rebecca loomed over him, fists clenched. "Why is that so difficult for you to grasp?"

Phileas matched her volume and more, each word bitten out separately. "Because he is nothing like me!" The last syllable raised echoes; they both started and fell silent like guilty children. "He isn't," Phileas almost whispered. "He's ... balanced, I suppose the word is. Calm, relaxed. Happy. Anyone can see that he doesn't get up every morning and look for a reason not to shoot himself." His eyes came up again, shame and defiance in one.

 _I wanted the whole truth. I wanted his walls down._ Rebecca in her time had faced armed men and leaped over fatal cliffs. All the courage she'd ever learned was barely enough to keep her looking into Phileas' eyes. He was watching for her to flinch, expecting it. Maybe wanting it, in a way; it would be the excuse he needed to truly give up. She couldn't bear the thought. "Go on." Her face, her voice might not be normal but she would refuse him no connection that might give him comfort.

Phileas sighed. "I've wondered whether you could ever love me." He was the one who broke eye contact, suddenly developing an intense interest in the toes of his shoes. "The last few days I've realized the answer. You could -- if I were a completely different person." His voice turned a shade more bitter. "I think you only came to me because you'd discovered you had an appetite for _him_."

A short, ugly laugh escaped Rebecca as she understood the latest turn of the labyrinth. "You're jealous of your other self."

Fogg smiled sourly. "Foolish, isn't it? Yes. I hate the bastard. I know I shouldn't. An _optimist_ ," he made it sound like an obscenity, "would say that if he can mold his character to that end, so can I." He paused. Even after they'd come this far, there were further words he was afraid to say. They finally came out, almost inaudible. "I don't know how much I can change. Even for you."

Tears stung Rebecca's eyes. She smiled tightly at her own foolishness. She couldn't stay angry at Phileas, not like this. She sank to her knees in front of his chair. "You ..." She had to touch him and she did, using combat-trained muscles to pull him forward against her. For an instant he resisted. Then he let out a single sob like something breaking and wrapped his arms around her. His breath was ragged, like weeping, but so was hers; it was impossible to tell comforter from comforted.

Rebecca found herself stroking his hair over and over. "You don't have to change." An absurd laugh escaped her; it hurt but it also felt good. "You're vain, and arrogant, and stubborn as a mule ... and you're the man I fell in love with. Just as you are. All I ask is that you keep being that way. Just keep breathing. If you change a little at a time, as you get used to being happy, that's one thing. You don't have to change first to earn the right to be happy."

He was reveling in her touch, every muscle as relaxed as if it were getting him drunk. Another few seconds, and he tensed again. Phileas backed up, just a few inches, to look Rebecca in the eye without letting her out of his arms. "That you fell in love with," he repeated as if it were a foreign language.

Rebecca smiled. "That's what I said. I believe your memory is as good as mine."

One of his hands drifted up. His fingertips traced her cheek, the line of her lips, as if she might shatter. "Me?" His voice trembled.

She nodded seriously, her eyes dancing. "You."

He was still Phileas Fogg; a sardonic smile momentarily touched his lips. "God help you." Then he pulled her against him, hard.

Passepartout found them, some time later, squeezed into the single chair. Rebecca, mostly on top of the tangle, was in a less than observant mood. She noticed Phileas stiffen and his hand slide out of the hair at the back of her head. Only then did she turn her face away, breathing a little fast. She saw the valet in the doorway.

The Frenchman looked as if he'd been hit in the back of the head with a board. A heavily laden tray occupied both his hands. It tilted dangerously before he got a white-knuckled grip on the handles. "Thousands of pardons," Passepartout said. "Not thinking to knock, is not done for valet. Will know next time ..."

Rebecca moved out of Phileas' lap before the poor man burst a blood vessel. "Thank you, Passepartout." She smoothed her dress. A glance out the window confirmed that the winter's early sunset had come and gone. She realized she was ravenous. "A meal will do all of us good, I'm certain."

The commonplace remarks gave Passepartout something to focus on. A small table was pushed up against the wall on one side of the door. Passepartout began to lay it out with the contents of his tray. He set out food, drinks and tableware. Rebecca watched his body language. The routine task seemed to have a settling effect for the valet. His hands grew steadier as he went, until he was behaving normally. He seemed to be thinking hard, although Rebecca was unable to guess the direction of his thoughts. She could imagine any reaction from enthusiastic approval to hysterical jealousy.

Even her own reactions were far from settled. She'd committed herself now, without question. Her emotions about that fact fluctuated wildly from euphoria to panic unless she kept a firm grip on herself. Rebecca glanced across at Phileas. He was on his feet too now, looking out the window. He looked calm. Rebecca suspected his emotions were little more settled than her own. _There's a time and a place for everything. Time enough for this when we've got poor Verne safely home._ She hoped she was keeping her composure as well as Phileas was.

Passepartout finished his preparations and stepped away from the table with a flourish. "Dining is served."

With no dining table deserving the name, they prepared plates for themselves and took them back to their chairs. Passepartout waited. It would be a great breach of decorum for a servant to eat with the better classes. That rule was frequently suspended on the _Aurora_ or other situations among themselves, but Passepartout seemed very attached to protocol at the moment. _He's probably wondering what this latest whim of ours will do to his place in our little band._ She couldn't provide much help even if she broke another rule to speak openly about it; her own place felt very uncertain.

Fogg nodded after a few bites of food. "Very satisfactory, Passepartout. Very resourceful of you." He continued eating.

Passepartout smiled and looked more comfortable. "Is always trying anticipating what master will need next. This is valet's profession. Also thinking -- is there to be renting of a hotel room?"

Fogg's expression darkened. Rebecca felt a surge of outrage herself, but couldn't sustain it. Passepartout's wide-eyed look of horror as he realized what he'd said was transparently honest. "Sorry! Not to say ... not to meaning ... only to mean, not thinking ..."

Rebecca smiled a little in spite of herself. Phileas caught it, out of the corner of his eye, and reined in his temper. "Perhaps you'd care to start again?" he suggested, his voice falsely light.

The valet grimaced. "Passepartout means, about Monsieur Dumas." He gestured at the deeply sleeping man. "Much said before about safety being in the numbers, everyone keeping together." He was choosing his words carefully. "Thinking this is still master's intention?"

Fogg nodded. "Indeed."

"Thinking so too, and so Passepartout asked things of workers in hospital. Another room is just down the hall, close. Sometimes the students doctors stay there between rounds. Not much. Only for one the chaise lounge, you say the sofa, but enough for resting without being too isolated. And not difficult that we are permitted to use it." Passepartout mimicked rubbing coins between his thumb and fingers.

"We can take it in turn, watching Dumas or napping," Rebecca said. "It's a lot better than nothing. I don't fancy the look of this floor."

Phileas nodded his agreement. They turned back to their meals. In a few minutes, Phileas remembered his responsibilities and muttered something that Passepartout correctly took as permission to start eating dinner himself. The valet's hands moved over the table with efficient grace, tidying empty and half-empty plates as well as serving himself. The mindless routine seemed to relax him from his earlier embarrassment. Passepartout began humming and talking to himself under his breath as he worked, something he often did on the _Aurora_. "Not bad thing, not problem, good thing," he whispered. "Nobody leaving, no strangers and the heartbreaks; keeping close. And by and by such _pretty_ babies, brave and smart ..."

"Go to hell, Passepartout." The words shot from Rebecca's lips with venom she hadn't known she felt. She'd killed while feeling less anger. The valet flinched as if she'd struck him. He turned to face her, his face chalk white. From his crouching posture, it wouldn't surprise him if she did follow words with violence. _Damn_. Rebecca owed an apology, once for eavesdropping and twice for losing her temper, but damned if she was going to. Phileas was watching her too. She couldn't read his expression. She could always read his expression but not this time, he was guarding himself. _Well, that was the shortest romance on record._ Rebecca wished for a quiet corner where she could be alone and pound her head against the wall.

"If you'd be so good, Passepartout," Phileas said quietly, "the evening editions. They must be out by now. All the different papers you can find ... have you got enough money?"

"Money? Yes, having francs." Passepartout absently patted his coat pocket. He was still looking at Rebecca. He opened his mouth as if to apologize, closed it again. "Excusing then, master." He left the room, nearly running.

Rebecca had the urge to escape with him. Anything but staying and having this conversation with Phileas. His face was still enigmatic. He set his dinner plate aside. "Have I ever," he said softly, "tried to compel you to do something against your will?"

"Madame Robley's Finishing School," Rebecca shot back. She had other examples, from their years as agents together, but the childhood incident came to the surface first. "You convinced me that if I stopped running away, your father would arrange extra tutors for riding and fencing instead of those appalling watercolor classes."

"And I was telling the truth, wasn't I?" he said. Rebecca could only nod. "Believe me now." His eyes were huge and dark, fixed on hers. She could drown. "I want to see you happy more than I want anything else on earth. Anything at all."

Rebecca folded her hands in her lap. She stared at them. "I have worked very hard to get my life the way it is," she whispered. "It's not the pain or the danger I'm afraid of, truly. It's being walled up alive out in the country somewhere, wiping runny noses and bloody well _knitting_ while the world goes on without me."

"I can understand that." Phileas was having to work at keeping his tone neutral. She appreciated the effort. "It's not inevitable, you know."

"Nor is it easy to avoid. Not if ..." Rebecca met his eyes again, and smiled helplessly. "I want to be with you. During battles and after them." She could just reach him, across the space between the two chairs. Her fingers rested lightly on his wrist. Phileas turned his hand and held hers, loosely enough that she could let go if she wanted. "I just don't know how to have it both ways."

He squeezed her hand gently. His skin was warm. "I mean what I said earlier. You needn't give me anything you don't choose to. What you've done already... if I were struck by lightning tonight, the last half hour with you is the very last thing in my life I'd regret."

A quote skidded through her mind. _I were but little happy, if I could say how much ..._ "Yes." Rebecca squeezed his hand tighter.

"I don't have a solution," Phileas said. "But will you accept that I won't ask you to settle for any less? I do value your honor."

 _That's why I love you._ "And I yours," Rebecca said.


	7. Fas Est Et Ab Hoste Doceri (Even Our Enemies May Teach Us)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conflict with Cavois reaches its climax.

"Miss Rebecca, please. Important waking up now." Rebecca Fogg sat bolt upright in the armchair, getting her bearings. The voice was Passepartout's, and he sounded terrified.

"What is it?" she asked. The valet stood out of arm's reach. He had long since grasped the hazards of startling a Fogg awake. Rebecca tried to estimate the time. Her body's clock came up with nothing more specific than 'damned late.' She'd already taken her first shift in the other room, a few hours' catnap on a sofa before trading places with Phileas. This could be the next change of watch ... but that wouldn't frighten Passepartout. She sighed. "Where is he?"

"Gone." He looked ashamed. "And alone, this time -- Passepartout not hearing him go out. Only closing eyes a moment..."

"It's not your fault." Rebecca went to the table near Dumas' bed. The two-shot derringer was gone from where she'd left it. That was one glimmer of hope, at least. Phileas was angling to survive whatever mad scheme he'd planned. He can't die if it would leave Verne unprotected. And maybe he wants to live more, now. She cut off that line of thought ruthlessly. One of them had to keep a clear head.

"We have to think." Rebecca's hands twitched at the seams of her skirt, where she would normally carry throwing knives. "He hasn't had any message from Cavois. Phileas has been in your sight or mine every minute since Jules was kidnapped -- no letters, no cables, no notes by private messenger. He certainly hasn't been to that thrice-damned post office in the Rue Sante Rochelle. And it would do him no good to go there now. They'll be locked up tight as a drum until tomorrow morning. Unless the post office itself is the site of their meeting, and the business about picking up a message pure camouflage."

"Thinking that, Miss Rebecca," the valet said. "Finding master gone, just now, Passepartout went to the cab stand in front of the hospital. The drivers there, no one see nor pick up tall Englishman wanting the post office in Rue Sante Rochelle."

"That doesn't help us. He could easily have walked," Rebecca said irritably.

"They tell me more," Passepartout said. "No such place as post office in Rue Sante Rochelle. Is street, yes. Little street in Latin Quarter. But nowhere on it a post office at all. Cabmen, they make their living knowing the city; I believe them."

Profanity was inadequate to the moment. Rebecca froze, forbidding any muscle to move until she'd mastered her temper. She stared hard at the far wall. Passepartout flinched all the same, as if she'd started throwing things. "Now that I think about it," she shaped each syllable carefully, slowly, "I didn't have a chance to read the soi-disant note from our friend Cavois. Phileas waved it about a bit, but he never let me read for myself." The chance was gone now. She remembered her cousin flinging a scrap of paper into the fire while they were talking of love. Even then, he had the presence of mind to hide it from me. To lie to me, by implication. "And you, Passepartout?" She was getting better at making her voice sound normal.

The valet's comical speech patterns hid a keen mind; he understood and gave the question real thought. "Saw a note, yes. And a few lines written, not a blank page. But seeing close, to read ... no. Master put up the note in his pocket, only repeat what it says."

"Or rather, invent it. I don't trust a word he said." Rebecca's mind leaped ahead. "Newspapers."

Passepartout stared at her. "Miss?"

The valet had re-folded the day's papers into a stack on the larger table. Rebecca sidestepped past him and pounced on it. "Newspapers," she repeated. "Phileas may be a liar and a scoundrel, but he doesn't waste time. If Cavois had merely named a rendezvous in that note, Phileas would have been getting ready for him well ahead of time. Instead, he cooled his heels with us in this hospital room for twelve hours or more -- and he kept calling for all the latest papers."

"Master always particular about newspapers," Passepartout said. "To receive them at the London house even when not staying there, to have ironed before he reads them..."

"He's particular about the temperature of his shaving water, too, but did he complain about missing that this morning?" Rebecca set the whole top half of the stack aside. "Not the morning editions. After he'd read them, he still needed the evening ones. I only hope he wasn't bright enough to guess that I might unravel his game, and take the relevant page with him."

She flung the older newspapers onto the nearest flat surface. It happened to be Alexandre Dumas' hospital bed. The older man groaned and tried to sit up.

Rebecca moved fast. She caught him by one elbow before he fell out of bed. "Hush, Alexandre. You need to rest."

He shook his big head, and winced. "Jules."

"Jules will be safe. You have my word, mine and my cousin's." She couldn't think about the odds that Phileas would die tonight, keeping that promise. Rebecca had to keep her fears in check if there was the slightest chance of helping either of them. "Listen to me. You must be resting and getting better when Jules gets back. He'll be furious with us, if he thinks we haven't taken care of you."

"Impudent youngster," Dumas said hazily. Rebecca wasn't sure if he meant Jules or herself; she didn't like to ask. "I've slept a year already, it feels like. At least tell me what you're doing."

Rebecca spread the first evening paper out across the bedclothes. It seemed the safest way of keeping him quiet. "Phileas followed a secret message to a rendezvous. The newspaper seems the only way he could have received the message. In London, I'd suspect the agony columns. I assume the Paris papers work the same way." She flipped toward the back of the paper.

"What is the agony?" Passepartout asked.

"Personal advertisements." Rebecca reached a double set of pages full of small and unevenly spaced blocks of text. "The seedier side of human nature, airing itself in public. Wives appealing to runaway husbands, fathers disowning runaway sons. Any number of young lovers plotting their elopements without the risk of letters that might be intercepted. And the occasional spy communicating with his masters, hiding in the debris. That's why the Service keeps an eye on it." She tapped the page. More than half the notices were coded in some way, with cryptic initials and the occasional Bible citation standing in place of important words. "This will take a while." Too long, she feared. A smaller proportion of the entries were complete jumbles of letters or numbers, suggesting the relative sophistication of a wheel cipher. She reached for pen and paper to focus on those first.

Dumas squinted at the page, which was angled sideways from his place on the bed. Rebecca wondered if the blow to the head had affected his vision. "There." He laid a thick finger on one of the jumbled advertisements, fourth from the top of the page. "My book. The code from my book, that Cavois killed for."

"Good Lord. I think you're right." Rebecca cast her mind back to their first meeting, months ago, with Dumas and with the assassin Cavois. The Prussian secret service had been using a code based on an English translation of Dumas' masterwork "The Three Musketeers." Cavois, in the Prussian's pay, had killed the British cryptographer Goodes in an attempt to keep the code secret. He had failed at that larger task just as he'd failed to kill the two Foggs. The code, broken by Goodes with some finishing touches from Dumas himself, was no longer secure for intelligence work. But it would pass well enough under these circumstances. "Cavois could be certain none of us would forget that cipher," Rebecca said.

"You are reading it?" Passepartout asked anxiously.

"Rectangular matrix, a simplified Vigenère with Alexandre's novel as a reference." Rebecca drew rough notes on a less vital part of the newspaper. "If Phileas can do it, I can." She tasked her memory -- she hadn't used the nota bene technique on the code system, as they hadn't needed to encode anything themselves -- and slowly copied one character after another. Neither she nor Phileas had ever had the patience for serious codebreaking, but they could both follow a known system easily enough. The text was short. That would be a hindrance if she'd been trying to break the code from scratch, but since she already held its key it was a decided convenience.

The words that took shape under her pen were English. "'Midnight. Alone.' Phileas would choose this occasion to start taking orders literally. A promise of Jules' safety, which Rebecca didn't believe a word of. And the location: Quai d'Oran." She'd reached the end of the coded characters. "Good. Alexandre, stay here and rest -- no arguments. Or I'll set the nurses on you. Passepartout, you're with me. One of your friendly cabmen will get us there, I expect." She missed her combat suit acutely. Rebecca hated fighting in dresses, and still more coming to a battle unarmed. But she could claw through a stone wall to be at Phileas' side for this, and still have the energy to slap him senseless when the danger was overcome. "Come on."

Passepartout had frozen, staring at the wall. "Yes." He shook himself. "Yes, at once we are going. But Miss Rebecca..."

She glared at the valet. "Now what?"

"Is gone past midnight already," Passepartout said. Rebecca turned. Passepartout had been staring at a clock. All the color drained from Rebecca's face.

\-----

The most annoying part, Phileas Fogg thought, was that he wasn't even comfortable. He'd last bathed and changed clothes in his own London house, before the time trip. Between stale clothing and two days without a shave, he was turning decidedly seedy. This time tomorrow, he'd be taken for a beggar rather than a gentleman. But this time tomorrow the problem would be resolved, one way or another.

The location he'd been given was down by the Seine, a disused section of river port. Any little-frequented location would be convenient for privacy, but this one -- the old warehouse actually extended partway over the river on piers, to facilitate cargo loading -- was unbeatable as a place to dispose of bodies by water. Phileas Fogg noted the fact with interest rather than fear. He had some hope of making use of it himself. He checked the little derringer hidden up his left sleeve. Its effective range was short, but both shots together or even a single one would be adequate to take a man's life. He'd given no word of honor to follow the rules of a duel this time. He had no intention of wasting time bandying words with Cavois. If he had to exchange his life for Jules', he would. He owed his young friend too much, cared for him too much. But with even a little luck, he could spray Cavois' brains over the nearest wall and have the best of both worlds.

The old warehouse was rimmed with high windows, a few still unbroken. A low moon outside cast enough light through them to paint the interior in shades of gray and black instead of leaving it pitch dark. Layers of dust told that the building was long-abandoned, but it was far from empty. Stacks of wooden crates and rusting machinery, probably not worth the effort of throwing them away, defined aisles in the echoing space. There was one halo of warmer light inside the building, toward a back corner. Phileas moved toward it, taking his time and preserving his night vision. Lamplight. A mistake, if Cavois expected to see him coming. He might yet be able to use assassin's techniques on the assassin without putting his own life at any great risk.

He could see them now, at the end of the aisle of crates. Fogg moved into the shadow of a wall for better cover. The lamp rested on a table-high crate. Jules was beside it, sprawled back in an old wooden chair. The young man's skin was free of blood and bruises. Fogg breathed a little easier. But Verne was far from his normal self. In full possession of his faculties he would have snapped defiance at his captors, struggled to escape. Instead his head lolled loosely sideways. His eyes were blank and dark with hugely dilated pupils. Drugged. Probably laudanum. Steel handcuffs bound Verne's wrists together in front of him, but they seemed more a formality than a serious precaution. Fogg doubted the boy could rise from the chair on his own. His face hardened. The drug would wear off, but it seemed a crueler violation than a beating. Jules himself valued his wits above his physical safety. Cavois stood close to the chair in faultless evening dress, a heavy pistol in his hands. He loomed over the helpless young man like a spider.

The derringer slid smoothly from Phileas' sleeve. He moved silently forward, gun extended. Better to try the shot at extreme range than leave Jules like that a second longer. He crossed a darker patch of shadow. Before he could move another step, Phileas felt a cold circle of metal at the back of his neck. "Let's not do anything hasty."

Fogg was poised to spring sideways. There was a good chance he could evade a bullet in the brain and fight back. But Cavois had moved at the same instant, responding to some signal he'd neither seen nor heard. Jules had a gun against his head too, a gun in Cavois' hands, and no chance in hell of saving himself. "Come, now," Cavois addressed the darkened room at large. "We really must talk this over."

Phileas spread his hands in surrender. The derringer was plucked from his fingers, while the larger gun remained pressed against his neck. "What else are you carrying?" a voice demanded. English, well educated ... nearly familiar, damn it.

"Nothing." Fogg didn't try to hide his chagrin. "Most of our gear went up in the fire."

A light chuckle. "M. Cavois has the decorum of a battering ram, but he's surprisingly effective at times. You'll pardon if I don't take your word." Steel closed on Phileas' right wrist. "Put your hands above your head a moment." Fogg complied. A tug on his wrist, and the other half of the handcuffs closed on his left. "That should do. Lower them, if you like."

I am dead. And probably Jules along with him. But Fogg couldn't have chosen differently, with a gun to his friend's head. Nor could Rebecca, if she'd been here. She'll plan better when she comes hunting them. It was a little comfort, not enough.

Cavois' ally stepped around him. He was a big man, not much shorter than Fogg and stockier. He wore black, suit and long coat and the leather gloves still holding a gun aimed at Fogg. His headgear ... Fogg paused. It was a close-fitting helmet, of a design he knew. Phileas had seen it in America. He had even worn the helmet, after its original owner had been captured. Odd-sized round goggles covered the man's eyes; Phileas knew now how he'd moved so nimbly in near-total darkness. "So Cavois has been working for the League of Darkness after all."

"Our alliance of mutual goals is quite a recent one." The man's voice was normally inflected, even humorous, but the pale face showing below the helmet was motionless and dead. "It seemed important to exert some control over the situation. I'm afraid, Mr. Fogg, that you should no longer rely on your bloodline to protect you from our order's most extreme sanctions. Your immunity has been lifted."

What immunity? What bloodline? Phileas let none of it show on his face. He'd played too much poker to show his cards without a pressing reason. "I know you. Count Gregory called you the Observer."

A nod of acknowledgement. "That is my office, but I am not the Observer you knew." The free hand touched the side of the helmet. "These are wired directly into the brain. When you tore it from him, you wounded him in a way that he could not long survive." The Observer's voice turned chill.

Saratoga Browne had died in that same conflict, shot in cold blood for no better reason than malice. "My condolences," Phileas returned, hard as ice.

"We may yet find leisure to discuss the matter." The Observer's voice was still hauntingly familiar. Phileas felt sure that he could give it a face and name, a human face. If he lived long enough. "My ally has the prior claim." A motion of the Observer's gun encouraged Phileas into the circle of lamplight.

Jules' chin came up a little, fuzzy recognition, when Fogg stepped in front of him. "No." he tried to sit up, failed. "Don't be here. Don't..."

"Hush." Phileas turned both bound hands to feel the temperature of Jules' clammy cheek, checked the pulse in the side of his neck. It was natural to move in close. Fogg arranged himself, in as natural a motion, between his friend and Cavois' gun. The renegade Frenchman hated him, not Jules. If he shot Fogg dead first there was a slight chance he might not bother shooting Verne as well. He turned smoothly to face Cavois, keeping the same relative positions. The Observer had laid down his own revolver beside the lamp -- tempting, but in practical terms as far away as the Moon. The Observer hung back, watching all three men as if they were staging a mildly entertaining play.

Cavois made a show of consulting his pocket watch. "You were nearly late for our appointment. That would have been very unfortunate."

"Crosstown traffic." Fogg had no intention of groveling. For a start, it would do no good. "You wanted me; I'm here. Your coded message said you'd release Jules unharmed in exchange for me."

Cavois smiled. "You do keep walking into these things, don't you?"

So. Phileas stared stonily into the man's eyes. "I notice you didn't bother with the pretense of a fair fight this time." His glance flickered momentarily to the Observer. "And that you didn't dare face me alone. What a pleasant memory that will be for you."

Cavois laughed out loud. "Save the playing fields of Eton for someone who believes in them. I'll be remembering it while worms nibble your bones. And you may not be alone for long. The lady will want to avenge you. I like enemies possessed by righteous rage. They make so many mistakes."

Rebecca won't. Phileas didn't want to speak her name, not here. Thinking of her was a comfort, and a fresh source of pain. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt a fear of death for the sake of what life had to offer, instead of mere animal reflex. It really could have happened this time. We could have been together. I could have grown old with her, like that other fellow...

He had time to satisfy his curiosity, at least. "Why did you kill -- why did you plan to kill Alexandre Dumas? At the tavern the other night. It was to draw me and Rebecca into a trap at a time and place of your choosing, wasn't it?"

"So you did see me in the Eight Horses. I'd wondered." Cavois bared his teeth. "I knew you had a sentimental attachment to the old souse. Did you expect me to just die quietly, after you'd started hunting me?"

Phileas stared back in genuine confusion. "I don't understand."

"Don't play me for a fool, Agent Fogg. Or an amateur. I spotted you on my trail in Brussels. That white wig wouldn't deceive a child."

"You saw me, with white hair." Phileas brought both hands up to his left cheek. "And a scar, here?"

"I've warned you once." Cavois' fist clutched on his handgun. He circled to the right, so that Phileas was no longer between him and Jules Verne.

Phileas flung his hands out forward and ducked into the line of fire again. "I meant no offense. I ... didn't realize it was that poor a disguise." That answered one question, at least. The elder Phileas Fogg had felt compelled to undo Dumas' murder because his own mistake had killed Dumas the first time. Phileas wondered what his other self had been doing in Brussels. There was no way to know. Unless I survive to be him. "You have me," Fogg said, trying to calm his murderer into something short of a frenzy. "Let Verne go. You don't need him."

"He's no use as a corpse," the Observer remarked. "And he's certainly no danger to us as a witness, in this state. We could send him back to the girl."

"I am not here to take your orders," Cavois said irritably. "And he is useful, dead. I want Fogg to see him die. A dear friend's blood splashed across his face ... just the mood I want him in when he tumbles down to Hell." His gun came up again.

No more chances. Phileas shoved blindly backward, felt Jules and the chair overbalance. He shifted his weight forward again and charged, aiming his torso at the muzzle of Cavois' gun. His chained hands clawed for Cavois' throat. One belly wound at point-blank range would be as fatal as the whole gun emptied into him, but neither would be an instant death. If he could catch and hold, if he could keep his grip long enough living or dead to strangle Cavois, Jules would live. I'm sorry, Rebecca.

A gunshot. Another. He'd expected white-hot pain smashing him in half. It didn't hurt. Fogg had thought he was beyond fear but the lack of pain now terrified him. He must be in shock, dying too fast. He sank both thumbs into the softness of Cavois' throat, felt the small flat bone in the larynx shatter. The assassin couldn't survive that. It was enough; Phileas could die now. Triumph gave him fresh strength, and it still didn't hurt. Cavois was limp under his hands like a broken rat in the teeth of a terrier ...

Phileas sat back on his heels, slowly. Cavois lay still when he released his throat, not even a reflex twitch. Fogg looked down at himself. The white linen that had been an expensive dress shirt a few days ago was unmarked by blood or bullet holes. He tugged Cavois' corpse onto its side. A slow trickle of blood seeped from under the assassin's head when it turned, blood coming from two small bullet holes at the base of Cavois' skull. The heavy revolver, unfired, lay at his side.

"For what it's worth, you might have gotten him." The Observer tossed Phileas' own derringer, empty and smoking, to the floor beside the body. "I do hate a cheat."

Fogg tried to regain his composure. "Kind of you."

The Observer shrugged. "Don't take it personally. I did warn you not to place further reliance on the protection of your blood. Your claim to the sang real is perhaps the best of this generation. Given the appropriate marriage, your son's could be even better. But there are other candidates with more acceptable views on the structure of society. It wasn't to spare you that I acted."

Phileas suddenly understood. "Verne."

The Observer nodded. "Verne."

The young Frenchman was sprawled on his face a yard or so behind Fogg. Alive. When Phileas raised him by one arm, he shifted and moaned.

The Observer stepped in and raised Verne's other side, with surprising gentleness, until the young man was sitting upright against Phileas' shoulder. "My instructions were to insure that Monsieur Cavois did no permanent harm to your friend Jules Verne," he said. "Our order has nothing but the best intentions toward him. You might assure him of that. His talents are literally irreplaceable."

"He's encountered your 'order's' opinion of his talents before," Fogg said stonily. "He loathes everything you stand for."

"We're used to being misunderstood." The Observer sounded amused. Again, his voice was hauntingly familiar. "Accommodation is still possible. But I advise you to stop drawing him into dangerous situations. Lest we be pressed to extreme measures for his defense."

"Verne goes where he likes. I believe he feels safer with us than open to your tender mercies."

The Observer made a gesture of resignation with both hands. "The young are often rash; it's excusable." His voice hardened. "You are not young."

It was the word 'young' that did it. Let me see your face. But Phileas didn't need to see it now; he'd seen it before. Visiting Cambridge while his brother was reading history there, a gaggle of undergraduate boys punting on the river and shouting at each other. And Erasmus' best friend in the center of it all, the Honorable Edward Prosser.

Phileas didn't let the slightest hint of recognition change his face. "You're coming in a little late with your concern about blood lines," he said. "The League was willing enough to kill my brother."

"Not willing." The Observer -- Prosser -- sounded genuinely sad. Phileas wondered if he'd said too much, if his moment of recognition would in turn be recognized. But the Observer went on, "We had some hope of salvaging the line through him, if not through you. It seemed for a while that he might be open to reason. Certainly we would not have disposed of him so ruthlessly, if he'd been captured alive. We try not to waste resources."

"Resources." The wet, heavy snow on that Austrian mountain would have been enough alone to kill many travelers on foot. But they'd been exhausted, trying to outrun well-rested men on horseback, and Erasmus already wounded. Erasmus had let himself fall to his death to buy Phileas a chance to escape. And this half-human creature called it a waste of resources ...

Some of the rage must have shown on his face. The Observer moved, not too fast, toward the other gun on the table. Phileas had Jules to think of. He forced himself back under control.

"Ruthlessness seems to be the defining trait of your branch of the family," the Observer said quietly. "Including ruthlessness toward yourselves. I ... would have preferred a different outcome."

It was almost sympathy; it was almost human. And Phileas had to hear it without showing any outrage at his brother's betrayal. The real identity of a League of Darkness member was too rare and valuable a clue to waste. "What do you want?"

The Observer glanced from cooling Cavois to unconscious Verne, and shrugged. "Nothing now, I think. I have no specific mandate to kill you myself. Not today, at least. Perhaps this is an apt moment to bid you good night." He touched the side of his helmet, at the temple. The goggles glowed an eerie green. The Observer stepped into the dark and was gone.

\-----

The first thing Rebecca Fogg saw inside the abandoned warehouse was the lamp burning low at the far end. The second was the bodies on the floor, and the blood. She gripped the hospital fire axe tighter -- there'd been no time to acquire guns -- and stepped into the circle of light. "Phileas!"

Passepartout, beside her, had a chair leg with nails hammered into it. "Master?"

Fogg was on his hands and knees on the floor. Not in his death throes, as Rebecca had thought in her first instant of panic, but searching the pockets of a corpse lying flat. He moved clumsily. Rebecca saw the glint of chain between his wrists. "I could do with a hand. Or a lockpick, if you've one about your person." Phileas tugged at the dead man's coat. Rebecca widened her focus a little and recognized the corpse as Cavois. Phileas was grumbling under his breath. "What kind of imbecile would carry two pairs of handcuffs and not bring the keys along?"

The other body, Rebecca recognized, was Jules Verne. She could see in the same instant that he was alive. He'd curled up on his side, snoring faintly, deeply asleep.

She set down her weapon. "See to him, Passepartout." The valet was already moving, helping Jules to a sitting position. The youth mumbled faintly and let his head drop to Passepartout's shoulder.

Rebecca knelt close to her cousin. "Give me your wrists." The cuffs were a pattern she knew. She set to work. She had a moment's attention to spare for Cavois' shattered skull, and the empty gun lying beside it. "You must tell me sometime how you managed."

"Not me. One of the League of Darkness -- their alliance was on a less stable footing than Cavois thought. I have things to tell you about that." A wry twist of the mouth; no one could have mistaken it for a smile. "If you let me live until dawn, that is." He squared his shoulders as if facing a firing squad.

Rebecca was focused closely on her hands, working with the lock. "You left me," she remarked.

"You did agree to let me deal with Cavois alone," Phileas offered. "When we last encountered him, in the business of the codes."

Rebecca held back a curse word, with difficulty. Is this the future? Can you not abide a romance and a partnership at the same time? But he would have done the same if he'd been working with a man. "You could have died," she said, making the remark as level and neutral as she could.

He nodded slowly. "Either of us could die, the lives we lead."

This, then, was how Phileas felt when she lept into the line of fire. His persistent efforts to keep her safe seemed less like personal insults now. "That's true enough." Rebecca aligned the last moving part within the handcuffs. The steel fell from her cousin's wrists.

He rubbed one wrist absently, his eyes never leaving Rebecca's face. "It's your decision. It always was."

It was hers because his own choice, keeping close to her in spite of his nominal resignation from the service, had never wavered. Phileas always had been Rebecca's for the taking. Accepting his suit had seemed foolish recklessness. Rejecting it, she knew now, was foolish pride. Her choice, Rebecca thought, was what kind of fool she wanted to be. She'd always expected the decision, on the long-dreaded day when she stopped evading it, would be hard. There was no easy choice, in the sense of an option without risks or sacrifices. But that didn't mean, now that the moment was on her, that the choice of futures itself was difficult.

She'd expected her hands to shake, too. They were steady, as she rested them lightly on the front of Phileas' shoulders. "You might give me a fairer chance at the coded message next time," Rebecca said conversationally. She leaned close to him.

He shook his head solemnly. "No. You'd have gotten to him first."

"Then be quicker off the mark, if you expect to win. I'm done coddling you."

"Are you?" Phileas' arms were around her, fingers lacing together behind her waist. He drew her in.

\-----

The dose of laudanum that Cavois had administered to Jules wore away in natural sleep by the middle of the next morning. Alexandre Dumas showed marked signs of recovery as well, his spirits buoyed by Jules' presence and the news of Cavois' demise. The four spent a quiet day in his hospital room, keeping him company. They talked for the most part of strategy and time travel; little of romance, though Phileas and Rebecca were rarely out of arm's reach of one another. Toward sunset Dumas' son, notified by a telegram, arrived to take his prodigal father home.

With the danger of Cavois gone Jules preferred to spend the night in his own bed in his garret, and said so. He'd said nothing further which directly addressed the new closeness between the two Foggs, but he didn't make even a token offer to take the other three home with him to his lodgings. His cramped quarters were reason enough for the omission, by normal standards, but normal standards hardly applied after all they'd been through together. Phileas insisted on loaning him a few francs for cab fare. The Foggs and Passepartout, with no further need to linger at the hospital, walked the young man to the hansom cab stand at the nearest street corner. Verne bid them goodbye tersely, unsmiling, and disappeared into a cab without looking back.

"He won't be able to hold a grudge for long," Rebecca said quietly when the cab was out of sight. "Poor Jules does wear his heart on his sleeve, but he also has some considerable reserves of common sense. He'll come around in time."

Phileas winced. "If you don't mind, my dear cousin, I'd appreciate the avoidance of metaphors like 'in time' for a while. Sensitive subject."

Rebecca smiled. "I shall do my best. In the mean time, do you have any constructive suggestions?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. I suggest that by this point, I'm fully prepared to kill for a bath and a decent change of clothes. I further suggest that with Cavois no longer a factor, there's no reason we shouldn't have those things. A draft on my bank should easily provide us with the means for a return to decency; long before it reaches the London office our temporal troubles," he scowled again, "should be well over. The Hotel Lyonesse, I think. They know us, so there shouldn't be trouble over our lack of luggage. And Passepartout should be able to acquire a few necessities before the shops close. Would you like to see civilized standards re-established, Passepartout?"

A broad grin covered the valet's expressive face. "Of the absoluteness, master. Saying before, the Phoenix is very bad way of travel. What is the use to arrive somewhere without trunks and the other trappings? Very happy having the suite in the good hotel, with the bath of hot water and the bedroom ..." He flushed bright red. "Meaning of course the two bedrooms. Passepartout shall be not in the same room. Sleeping like lumber, me; always never hearing anything unless bell is ringing."

Rebecca was close by Phileas' side, with her arm in his. He turned to her a moment, searching her face. "In fact, I believe you mean three bedrooms," Fogg said quietly. "Rebecca?"

Scamp. So he proposed to keep her waiting in revenge for the chase she'd led him? Rebecca could play that game. "Three seems the proper number," she said calmly, with sparkling eyes.

\-----

Rebecca woke before dawn, luxuriating in newfound comfort. The Lyonesse had provided for them on a royal scale. Her sore muscles from sleeping on wooden benches and narrow sofas had been soothed away in a huge, steaming copper bathtub. A night's sleep in a decent bed, with clean linen sheets and a clean cotton nightdress, had completed the cure. She was just awake enough, and just hungry enough, that the prospect of ringing for breakfast when she felt good and ready was an additional pleasure. She turned over, closer to the edge of the bed, and became aware of a faint scent of flowers mixed with a pleasantly masculine musk. So you feel amorous first thing in the mornings, then? She sat up languorously, aware of how the thin gown outlined her upper body, and opened the bed curtains.

The chair beside the bed was empty. The entire room, from the standpoint of darkly handsome male cousins, was empty. The window, opening onto a miniscule balcony, stood wide open with a fresh morning breeze ruffling the curtains. Rebecca went to the window, her bare feet silent on the carpet. She wasn't surprised, in the event, to see a familiar rope-slung platform resting on the balcony floor. She craned her neck; the golden Aurora rode at anchor above the hotel.

Rebecca glanced around the room with more attention. The floral scent came from a small round table in the corner. A long-stemmed scarlet rose, so fresh that beads of dew still clung to its petals, lay on the table atop a folded sheet of paper. She opened it.

Rebecca --

Please exercise all required caution not to return to the neighborhood of London before 7:17 p.m. this evening London time. You will find that this is the latest that any of the four of you were in contact with outsiders in the original time line.

There are so many more things I could wish to write to you -- but that is self-indulgence. You will create your own future in your own way. I only want to tell you, as I will tell you again when I come home, that if your future leads you to my present then I can imagine no better fate.

Eternally yours,

Phileas

Rebecca found her new dressing gown and wrapped it around her. She folded the letter, with great care, and put it deep in the dressing gown's pocket. She would share it with her own Phileas, but not yet. They would, it seemed, be granted enough time; she saw no need to prod the courtship along using his fancied rivalry with his elder self. She crossed the sitting room of their suite and tapped on another bedroom door.

"Phileas," she called, "do you feel up to climbing ten yards or so of rope before breakfast?"

-FIN-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes:(7/27/01) there's an academic joke that stealing from one person is plagiarism, but stealing from dozens is research. The words "nota bene" are not only a Latin phrase but the name of a DOS-based word processing program which a co-worker only recently abandoned with the switch to Win98. I owe the late Rex Stout (and his hero, the incomparable Archie Goodwin) for the concept of verbatim memory which I hooked up to that Latin phrase and twisted to my own ends. The gimmick of having Latin chapter titles, which initially seemed like such a hot idea, got fairly difficult toward the later sections. I am in debt to the members of the Lois McMaster Bujold Mailing List (www.dendarii.com) for their assistance.  
> I owe the various members of the SAJV and AuroraVernealis mailing lists thanks for their kind attention and feedback in the course of this story. I also owe them for, in many cases, writing better SAJV fiction at a faster rate so that I was forced time and again to get off my butt and finish the next chapter. I also owe several list members for the loan of ideas (including the work-in-progress posting format itself) which were originally developed in their own fics. I hope all those 'fanon' ideas were handled lightly enough not to count as copying, and I certainly intend to put them back when I'm done.  
> My intention now, Real Life permitting, is to launch almost immediately into a direct sequel to "Nota Bene," to be called "Sang Real," which I also expect to post in WIP format.  
> Author's Notes (7/2/13) I had extensive notes for "Sang Real" which was to be an exploration of Rebecca and Phileas' early courtship and the history of their family. The League of Darkness was to be a secret society protecting the royal bloodline of Christ as seen in the book "Holy Blood, Holy Grail." Phineas and Rebecca were to be representatives of this bloodline. If they married, their children would be even more valuable prizes in the centuries-long conspiracy. (This was some years before Dan Brown 'borrowed' the idea; I still like the original better.)  
> In retrospect, I was losing momentum in SAJV fandom (the show had been off the air two years) but "Sang Real" was an interesting story. I felt that having publicly committed to it, I could finish it. I had an office job at a college at that time, which gave me a lot of time to write. I had a light schedule on Tuesday, so I'd planned to get a lot of writing done. Then a piece of news came across the CNN website; an airplane of some kind, details sketchy, had hit the World Trade Center. I never picked up the story again after that.  
> Nevertheless I remain proud of "Nota Bene," and I hope any faithful SAJV fans who remain enjoy it too.


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